Jazz Finland Live

Diane Schuur, considered one of the best female vocalists of modern jazz, returns to April Jazz for the first time in 25 years. The two-time Grammy winner’s new album “I Remember you” (2014) is a homage to two of Schuur’s heroes – Stan Getz and Frank Sinatra.

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Turning 35 this year, Espoo Big Band (EBB) is one of the very best jazz big bands in Finland. At the anniversary concert, the EBB ensemble will be taken to new heights by the diverse English trumpeter Gerard Presencer, whose previous employers include Ray Charles, James Brown and Incognito. The concert will feature premiere performances of new pieces by Jukka Linkola and Marzi Nyman, along with Mikko Innanen’s piece dedicated to Juhani ”Junnu” Aaltonen, with the nearly 80-year-old maestro himself as the soloist. In addition to this, a foreign surprise guest will take a turn on stage.

EBB has been ambitious and determined in their efforts to PROMOTE Finnish jazz music, and they are especially known for their productions of new Finnish music. The band has reared many Finnish top-tier musicians, such as Iiro Rantala, Lenni-Kalle Taipale, Jukka Eskola, Jarmo Saari and Marzi Nyman, who currently helms the orchestra.

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The jazz concert series, hosted by Lázló Süle, continues at the Centre for Hungarian Culture and Science, Helsinki. This time Süle is joined by keyboard player Rob Dominis.

László Süle (b.1955) teaches the piano, history of music, didactics and composition at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. Initially a student of composition, he fell in love with jazz improvisation and ended up graduating from the jazz department of Béla Bartók Conservatory. Süle moved to Finland in 1989 to pursue a career as a music teacher. He has released several albums both - original compositions and other composers' works - and performed with jazz bands and chamber orchestras alike.

Rob Dominis comes from the United States, and having studied the jazz piano at the University of Miami he moved to Finland in 1989. He has taught at the Pop & Jazz Conservatory of Helsinki since 1990 and as a private teacher, directed bands and run various music workshops. He also performs regularly both in Finland and abroad, and has recorded a number of albums with well-known Finnish bands and artists. Dominis is also a theatre musician and he has been involved in many music productions in Helsinki.

László Süle, piano

Rob Dominis, keys

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Over the last forty years, many of the most respected jazz musicians in Finland have played with UMO. Jukkis Uotila, a drummer, pianist and teacher, is one of them.

The third concert in UMO’s anniversary concert series concentrates on Uotila’s own recent big band arrangements and compositions. Most of the material is from the The Music Of Jukkis Uotila album, which he recorded with the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra in 2013.

– I’ve composed a lot of music, but I hadn’t written anything for a large orchestra in a couple of decades. The Music Of Jukkis Uotila is the first record I’ve made that consists solely of my own big band pieces, Uotila explains.

Uotila started playing in big bands at the age of 14, when he was a founding member of the Oulunkylä Pop & Jazz Conservatory’s orchestra. Since then he has played with big bands at home and abroad, from UMO and the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Taback big band to several radio orchestras in Central Europe.

Uotila’s versatile background and his long career in music are both apparent in his compositions. He writes music that draws heavily from his personal esthetics, independent of musical trends and fashion. Uotila’s music is a kind of antithesis to the broad, painterly strokes used by most European big bands at the moment.

– The songs and arrangements are based on the traditions of jazz, but the sound is all mine: strong melodies underscored by polymorphous harmonies backed by groovy rhythms.

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