In the spring of 2016, Valtteri Laurell Pöyhönen composed the commissioned work Tigers Are Better Looking for the Oulu Elojazz Festival. The festival's artistic director, Jukka Eskola, had suggested that Pöyhönen compose music for a band whose main soloist would be clarinetist Antti Sarpila, with whom Pöyhönen had previously collaborated with both Dalindèo and the Ricky-Tick Big Band.

The end result is modern jazz music that draws on the cool jazz and third stream concepts of the early 1960s but still enables Antti Sarpila's traditionally conscious and intense clarinet solism.

Each of the top musicians in the line-up also plays a solo role, but in the spotlight of the band is Sarpila's timeless and soulful expression. Sarpila is mainly known for his very traditional ensembles performing swing music, so this type of more modern jazz is very rare for him. Sarpila is able to express himself wonderfully in these harmoniously extensive works and it is great to see how his sound timelessly carries through jazz styles.

The theme of the composition is based on short stories by the lesser-known British Caribbean author Jean Rhys and his only published novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. The melancholy and lifelike atmosphere of these writings provided the perfect ground to compose atmospheric, soulful jazz music.