Jazz Finland Live
Tampere Jazz Happening,Telakka, tampere5.11. At 21:00
Juhani Aaltonen & Raoul Björkenheim Duo (FIN)
What a tandem! Finland’s John Coltrane and extensively globally fought guitar guerilla finally realize their long time dream of a duo. The original acoustic concept for flute and guitar was extended to include electricity and tenor. A founder member of the mighty New Music Orchestra and legendary jazz-rocking Tasavallan Presidentti and collaborator with the likes of ReggieWorkman and Andrew Cyrille, Juhani “Junnu” Aaltonen just gets better and deeper with age. Having a tendency to get into exciting situations with left field innovators like Bill Laswell, Lukas Ligeti and HenryKaiser, the much younger Raoul Björkenheim is a great sparring partner for the venerable elder of Finnish Jazz.
Pepa Päivinen & The Good Romans (FIN)
The baritone is Pepa Päivinen’s number one horn, but he has no problem with other saxes, clarinets or flutes. Now 61, Päivinen was first inspired by the Finnish Tasavallan Presidentti and Soulset. He also dug Colosseum and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Then came long stints in Edward Vesala’s Sound & Fury and UMO. Saxophone quartet Saxperiment and Anthony Braxton expanded his vision. On his own records he has used trios and quartets, and recently also a great duo album with percussionist Hannu Risku was released. The Good Romans are an electronically expanded bassless trio, again a new page for the constant seeker.
Krakatau (FIN)
Krakatau is a volcano in Indonesia and Finland, where it spits sounds, not magma. Along its four albums in the 1980’s and 90’s, the band saw several drummers, but has always been helmed by main composer Raoul Björkenheim. Allergic to anything usual, the guitarist originally started a trio with drummer Edward Vesala and trombonist Jari Hongisto as an audio mirror image of its namesake. It soon turned into a quartet, whose albums and gigs were globally showered with wild praise. Now we witness the band’s second coming. Old songs will get new clothes, but there will also be totally new material.
Tickets 25/20 €
Gigs on the same day in tampere
Tampere Jazz HappeningPakkahuone, tampere5.11. At 14:00
The Necks (AUS)
The Necks’ 18th album Vertigo (2015) is an eventful kaleidoscopic tone poem set against a darkly shimmering background, band camp describes their latest, a 44-minute cinematic audio journey. Like nobody else, the three Australians create music that has elements of minimalism, ambient, trance, rock and jazz, but mix it into a whole that really doesn’t have a name. Necking? All members have been schooled in Australia’s impro music scene and have been active on the European scene for many years. Now celebrating 30 years together, The Necks played Jazz Happening in 2001 and have done special projects with the likes of Brian Eno, Evan Parker, Swans, Leo Abrahams and Karl Hyde.
Krakatau & Senegal Drums
Eve Risser White Desert Orchestra (FRA/NOR)
Last time Eve Risser visited Happening with drummer Yuko Oshima as Donkey Monkey duo. Now we hear the innovative French woman with her first large orchestra, where ten musicians offer a more extensive palette for different solutions. Risser loves Evans, Bley, Jarrett, Monkand Cecil Taylor and reveals that she “started to explore the inside of the piano to be able to imitate trumpets, saxes and percussions”. Now she actually has them at her command and she’s delighted of the challenge. She started in chamber music, but soon got into experimental music to look for sounds behind the sounds, also by her involvement in the avantgardist Umlaut label.
Tickets 30/25 €
Tampere Jazz HappeningPakkahuone, tampere5.11. At 20:00
Charles Lloyd Quartet (USA)
Talk about experience! Growing up in Memphis, Charles Lloyd (78), who has African, Cherokee, Irish and Mongol blood in his veins, grew up in a setting, where jazz, blues, gospel, rock and country were all blooming. His best friend was trumpet great Booker Little. Early on he played blues with the likes of Johnny Ace and Bobby Blue Bland and jazz with George Coleman, HaroldMabern and later in Los Angeles, while studying classical music, with Ornette, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy and the Adderley Bros. His awesome 1960’s quartet with Keith Jarrett played on the same bills with Hendrix and Cream, and he recorded with the Doors, the Byrds and the Beach Boys. He also got seriously into meditation and researched Indian and African music. A true revolutionary!
Donny McCaslin Group (USA)
“This new album is an expression of that journey for all of us,” Donny McCaslin says of his new album Beyond Now(Motéma Music, 2016), meaning the experience of him and his band recording David Bowie’s goodbye album Blackstar. “It was his fearlessness in crossing boundaries and genres in his music and life that inspired the risks I’m taking with Beyond Now”. The record features singer Jeff Taylor and covers 2 Bowie-songs, Deadmau5, MUTEMATH and Chainsmokers, not forgetting the originals, like the title song. Having favoured acoustic jazz, the saxist turned electric on Perpetual Motion(Greenleaf Music, 2010) and has since taken serious influence from electronica. The Berklee-schooled Californian son of a vibraphonist has played with Steps Ahead, Gary Burton, Maria Scneider and Dave Douglas, to name a few.
Sly & Robbie meet Nils Petter Molvær (JAM/NOR/FIN)
The surprising combination of Jamaican dub’s deep rhythms, free jazz and electronica is a powerful crossing. Especially when the rhythms come from the genre’s most legendary tandem and the rest from the famous Norwegian avant jazz’s top men. After studies at the Trondheim Conservatory, hallusinogenic trumpet’s master Nils Petter Molvær started to explore the limits of jazz in Jazzpunkensemblet and then in Masqualero with old foxes Aril Andersen and Jon Christensen. He also played in Bill Laswell’s and Zakir Hussain’s Tabla Beat Science on top of his own bands. Sly & Robbie, of course, have influenced reggae more than anybody after Bob Marley.
Tickets 50/40 €
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra (www)
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra (UK)
The lately again active Madness invented two tone with the Specials and couple of other brit bands in the late 1970’s when Jamaican rhythms met punk attitude. Few bands have bottled the essence of London as effectively as Madness. However, founder members saxist Lee Thompson and bassist Mark Bedford wanted to also play the authentic ska/rock steady rhythms that they used to dig in the late 70’s, so they founded the Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra in 2011. The 12-strong band holds other Madness insiders as well. Now they have already done two fabulous albums with the new one, Bite The Bullet(Axe Attack, 2016), offering also originals with the Jamaican classics.
Tickets 25/15 €
Joni Mitchell Resurrection Cafe
Laura Sippola, vocals, keys
Joonatan Rautio, sax
Peter Engberg, guitar
Tuure Koski, bass
Kepa Kettunen, drums
