Jazz Finland Live

Thad Jones has been characterised as one of the best jazz trumpet soloists as well as one of the most important big band composers and arrangers of all times. It’s also said that he was also one of the world’s most prominent big band conductors. Even today, his compositions are key repertoire of big bands all over the world.

The year 2023 marks 100 years of the master composer’s birth. To celebrate the anniversary year, the UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra honors this concert with trumpeter Jukka Eskola as soloist and Antti Rissanen as conductor. The concerts feature Jones’ master compositions from the repertoire of the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra from 1960’s and 1970’s.

Thad Jones and Mel Lewis visited UMO in December 1977. In addition to the concert at the Hesperia nightclub, an album called Thad Jones, Mel Lewis & UMO was recorded on the same visit. The album was later nominated for a Grammy in the Best Jazz Instrumental Performance – Big Band category in 1979. After the visit, UMO’s then-trumpeter Simo Salminen was attached to the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra.

The duration of the concert is 2 hours, including an intermission.

Harri Sjöström: saxophones
Philipp Wachsmann: violin
Antonio Borghini: double bass
Vincent von Schlippenbach: turntables
Cristiano Calcagnile: drums
Libero Mureddu: piano
Livia Schweizer: flutes
Ville Herrala: double bass
Teemu Mustonen: drums

Libero Mureddu tells about this concert:

For my second doctoral concert on the 25th October, at Musiikkitalo, there are coming great musicians from Germany, Finland, UK, and Italy.

In that concert at Musiikkitalo, four players on stage (Sjöström, von Schlippenbach, Borghini, and Calcagnile) will play live together with their digital avatars. The avatars will be controlled respectively by Schweizer, myself, Herrala and Mustonen) while Wachsmann will attend the concert as part of my doctoral jury.

However, in this jaZZanti concert everybody will play their own instruments, resulting in a potential ‘double quartet plus one’, with two wind instruments, two basses, two drums, one DJ and one piano, and a violin.

It will be quite fascinating to witness how the digitally mediated collaboration and understanding of each other’s styles will translate within a more traditional setting, without technology. During this concert we will play different pieces in different combinations.

Most of the performers have known each others since long time, and there are multiple personal and artistic trajectories in place tonight, and hopefully new ones will blossom, a fact that is always important for the development and the growth of the international community of creative musicians. It is a diverse group of people, and not only geographically, that includes some of the early creators of this music all the way to the youngest generation. Similarly, their artistic interests and activity extends across a wide area of music practices.

For me personally, it is a great honour to have collaborated with them, and a pleasure to bring them together and play with them. Above all, it will be great occasion to see on stage those fabulous creators of real-time music.

Photo: Sakari Puhakka

The concert is supported by City of Helsinki, Svenska Kulturfonden, The Finnish Music Foundation and The Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).

Open event