Jazz Finland Live

Adele Sauros Quartet
(Adele Sauros – tenor and soprano sax, Vili Itäpelto – piano, Kaisa Mäensivu – double bass, Ville Luukkonen – drums)

Elena & The Rom Ensemble
(Elena Mindru – voc, Sampo Hiukkanen – violin, Tuomas J. Turunen – piano, Eero Seppä – bass, Anssi Tirkkonen – drums)

Johannes Sarjasto Quartet
(Johannes Sarjasto – alto sax, Artturi Rönkä – piano, Janne Tuovinen – bass, Joonas Leppänen – drums)

Grantstand Quartet
(Lauri Vihro – guitar, Samuli Rautiainen – piano, Mikael Saastamoinen – double bass, Sami Nummela – drums)

Young Nordic Jazz Comets started in 2000 and has since been a recurring event on the Nordic jazz scene. The main purpose is to create attention to new jazz talents, giving them the opportunity to meet their future audience and to play at professional venues. Until 2012, this event has been organised as an annual competition. Starting in 2012, the countries involved in YNJC, wanted to focus more on the aspect of promotion, and not the competitive elements. The idea is to create a club event for young aspiring jazz talents at one of the key jazz venues in one of the Nordic countries each year. The goal will be to attract as much attention as possible from key people within the jazz community in the Nordic countries/the rest of the world, be it jazz clubs, festivals and the music press.

The procedures for selecting the bands for the Nordic showcase vary from nation to nation. In Finland, the process is based on applications according to which four bands compete in the national finals in May. The national Finnish winner represents the country in the YNJC main event. The Finnish representative for the Nordic YNJC showcase at the Jazz Finland festival is chosen in a band competition at Koko Jazz Club on May 17th.

The bands play a 15-minute set each, and the professional jury reviews their performance. In addition to the YNJC showcase in September, the winner gets a grant of 1.000 €, a concert at the Jazz-Espa festival, mentoring for international careers and a concert at the next year’s Finnish YNJC competition. The runner-up gets a grant of 700 euros, and the jury has also an optional prize of 300 € to hand out to an outstanding band or soloist. All the bands also get personal feedback after their performance.

The fifteenth Nordic Young Nordic Jazz Comets showcase takes place during the Jazz Finland festival in Helsinki on the 18th of September. The YNJC showcase is a part of the programme of the Europe Jazz Network General Assembly weekend, and there will also be plenty of international jazz media reps in the audience. In general, the YNJC showcase is the perfect opportunity for a young band to present themselves to the industry and the wide audience.

Read more about YNJC: www.youngnordicjazzcomets.com 

Conductor Kari Heinilä leads UMO Jazz Orchestra into the world of big band giants in the official summer opening and admission free concert at Espa Stage. The concert focuses on the music of Duke Ellington (1899–1974) and Gil Evans (1912-1988) and will feature essential pieces from two of the probably most important jazz composers of all time.

Ellington and Evans walked strictly their own paths, conductor Kari Heinilä explains. ”If you compare them to other composers of that time, their music stands out as unique. Neither of them wrote music that sounds like anyone else’s. In the time when big band music was in vogue, arrangements were often made with such a pace, that they all tended to sound alike. Ellington and Evans however wrote music, that was full of surprises and unusual instrumentations.”

The Duke Ellington part of the concert will feature a significant piece A Tone Parallel To Harlem (Harlem Suite) from the beginning of 1950’s – a fifteen minute long musical poem that consists of many parts and represents Ellington’s endeavor to compose concert pieces rather than something for people to dance to. The Mooche, which is a unique interpretation of blues with its unusual instrumentation, represents the rootier side of Ellington.

The Gil Evans part of the concert consists of his arrangements instead of compositions. In case of Evans, the line between a composition and an arrangement is however very thin. For example an arrangement of Orgone from George Gershwin’s musical Porgy & Bess, which will be performed in the concert, transformed almost to a whole new composition in the hands of Evans. The concert will also feature Evans’s interpretations of the music of Charles Mingus.

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xtVCG3dJ4M

Open event