Vibraphone trio Herd celebrates its ten-year anniversary in 2019. The ensemble, led by vibraphonists Panu Savolainen, releases their new album X on Doorbell Music in February at the G Livelab in Helsinki, and their album release tour hits the road later in the year.

Herds consists of Panu Savolainen (vibes), Mikko Pellinen (bass) and Tuomas Timonen (drums) and is known both for their colourful and communicative trio play and the HERD clubs hosted by the band. The clubs have led for numerous collaboration projects, one of them being the popular ‘Jazzbasilli’ together with vocalist Aili Ikonen.

After versatile guest concerts, Herd return to its roots on multidimensional and melancholy but beautiful trio music. The X album consists of original compositions of the members and the trio boldly makes a good use of the possibilities of the studio technology. However, on live performances Herd still relies on the dynamics of its acoustic swing. The album is sort of a recap of the earlier years of the band and the versatile work with many guest and repertoires can be heard on X.  

Herd has performed in Finland on Pori Jazz house band in 2010, Jazz Finland tour in 2011, at the opening of the Helsinki Music Centre in 2011 and hosted their own HERD club in Helsinki, Lahti and Hämeenlinna between 2012 and 2014. They did a Australian tour in 2015 and three trips to Ethiopia between 2016 and 2017.

In July 2011, Herd was awarded the first prize at the prestigious “European Jazz Competition” at Holland’s North Sea Jazz Festival, where they performed again in 2012.