Jazz Finland Live

ADELE SAUROS QUARTET (FI)
Adele Sauros - tenor & soprano saxophones
Max Zenger - alto saxophones
Seppo Kantonen - piano
Vesa Ojaniemi - double bass
Tuomas Timonen - drums

Last spring the Finnish Saxophone Society granted the Åke Forsell prize to Adele Sauros, who composes fresh and lively modern jazz for her quartet. Their repertoire reaches from tender ballads and modal melancholy all the way to wilder free expression. The tenorist, who occasionally uses also soprano and flute, names young upandcomers like Ambrose Akinmusireand Walter Smith III as inspirations as well as old masters like Coltrane, Miles and Rollins. Sauros plays also in two trios, Katu Kaiku and the Danish-Finnish JAF that is this year’s Rising Star of the We Jazz organization. Some years ago she even ran her own club in Helsinki.

Her quartet features the older piano wizard Seppo Kantonen (Pekka Pohjola, Eero Koivistoinen, UMO, etc.) along with the excellent young rhythm section of Vesa Ojaniemi (double bass) and Tuomas Timonen(drums). At the Happening they have also a special guest, who belongs to Finland’s rising jazz comets. Altoist Max Zenger leads Maxxxtet and his own Quintet and plays on Adele’s second album My Spontaneous Mind, so you can expect to hear material from it.


EERO KOIVISTOINEN QUARTET (FI)
Eero Koivistoinen - tenor & soprano saxophones
Alexi Tuomarila - piano
Jori Huhtala - bass
Jussi Lehtonen - drums

You could call this acoustic hardcore jazz, even though Aleksi Tuomarilamay occasionally change from grand piano to electric piano. Of course, Eero Koivistoinen has extensive experience also of free, prog and rock, fusion, children’s music and many ethnic styles, above all Finnish and African. The sometimes soprano blowing tenorist and the recipient of the first ever Yrjö jazz award is one of the grand old men of Finnish jazz and has stayed active and creative through the decades. He has studied at the Sibelius Academy and Berklee, gigged at Newport and Montreaux, is a founder member of the mighty UMO orchestra and has travelled around the world investigating different forms of music.

At the Jazz Happening he is celebrating the release of his new album Illusion and will mostly play compostions from it. If he decides to cast a glance at the past, there’s certainly no shortage of interesting material. For instance, Wahoo! (1972) and The Front Is Breaking (1976) are international album classics, their original pressings changing hands at ridiculous sums of money. The quartet’s other members represent the cream of the younger Finnish jazz generation.

VIRTA (FI)
Antti Hevosmaa - trumpet, vocal, electronics
Heikki Selamo - guitar, vocal, electronics
Erik Fräki - drums, percussions, electronics

Extremely holistic approach is what hits you first in this Helsinki trio’s music. The electronically enhanced kombination of trumpet, guitar and drums doesn’t really solo at all in the traditional sense. Instead they paint collectively fluid amoeba-like moods and visions. The sound is abstractly visual and often they also use a changing visual backdrop.

These guys belong to that new generation of players, who view jazz through other music styles that they have grown up with. In Virta’s case they are post-rock and different styles of electronica. Noteworthy is that they don’t realize their vision on the basis of the biggest common nominators, but with a piquant avant-garde sensibility and an unerring sense of mood. Virta’s two albums, Tales From the Deep Waters (2012) and Hurmos (2016), have both got excellent reviews.

Tickets 25/20 €

SUNNA GUNNLAUGS TRIO WITH VERNERI POHJOLA (IS/US/FI)
Sunna Gunnlaugs - piano
Thorgrímur Jónsson - bass
Scott McLemore - drums
Verneri Pohjola - trumpet

Icelandic indie rock/pop has long been a big thing internationally, but the local jazz scene is still rather unknown. The situation is about to change with players like pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs, who names Americans Brad Mehldau and Keith Jarrett as inspirations as well as Scandinavians Bobo Stenson and Jon Balke. On her 11 albums, one of them a soundtrack to the film Reykjavik, Gunnlaugs builds a bridge between European elegance and New York drive, while not forgetting Icelandic folk music.

Sunna started as a kid on organ, because she associated piano with “boring classical musicians”. Hearing a record by the Bill Evans Trio changed that view. In the 90’s she went to New York to study music, staying there several years. Big Apple’s pulsating jazz scene influenced her substantially. Having returned to Iceland, Gunnlaugs has honed her style of mixing European and American elements to a truly refined level. In Tampere her long time trio will feature the masterful Finnish trumpet player Verneri Pohjola as a guest star. The set list will include compositions from both, some of them never heard before.

World premiere!

SAMUEL BLASER - EARLY IN THE MORNING - FEAT. OLIVER LAKE (CH/US/FR/ES/DK)
Samuel Blaser - trombone
Oliver Lake - alto saxophone
Russ Lossiung - keys
Masatoshi Kamaguchi - bass
Billy Mintz - drums

As far out a festival as the Jazz Happening is, we wouldn’t have it, as we wouldn’t have jazz and rock generally, without the blues. That’s why it is especially great to get to experience trombonist Samuel Blaser’s latest project, where he digs into old delta blues from free jazz angle. For his aid in this challenging task he has called a very special guest: free jazz elder Oliver Lake, who in one way or another has always mirrored that concept in his own works.

Born in Switzerland but settled in Berlin via New York, Blaser has grown with astonishing speed from a straight-forward hard bopper into an innovative and ever new ground searching composer, who is now recognized as one of the most creative trombone players. He has so far made 13 albums with different line-ups from solo upwards and all of them have been highly praised.

Using mostly alto but also soprano and flute, Oliver Lake is a founder member of the legendary World Saxophone Quartet. His cosmically inclined free has always been more or less grounded by a deep understanding of the roots of the African-American music tree. His recorded catalogue with various bands is vast with the accent changing from avant-garde to funk.

ERIK TRUFFAZ QUARTET (FR)
Erik Truffaz - trumpet
Marcello Giuliani - bass
Benoît Corboz - piano, Fender Rhodes, hammond
Arthur Hnatek - drums

He might very well be the coolest trumpet player in France. On the surface his vision of jazz is not that radical, but dig a little deeper and you will find influences from reggae, bass’n’drum, house, rock, hip-hop, several ethnic musics, you name it. A sure mark that a musician is awake and aware of changes happening in his own time.

Before Erik Truffaz, whose mentor is the ambient/ethnic trumpet master Jon Hassell, has used rappers in his music. On Being Human Being (2014) he collaborated with Mexican sound manipulator Murcof. On last year’s Doni Doni Africa enters the picture through Malian singer Rokia Traore. Still, it is Truffaz’ thoughtful trumpet lines and Benoît Corbez’ shimmering Fender Rhodes that really set the mood, where the presence of nature mixes with a distinctly urban vibe in a strangely soothing way.

Tickets 30/25 €

Open event