The board of Music Archive Finland has awarded the 38th Finnish Jazz Legend Prize to drummer, pianist, composer and jazz pedagogue Jukkis Uotila.
Jukkis Uotila has had a diverse career as a musician. He has nine albums of his own, and as a line musician, he has already played on more than 120 records. In the early 1980s, Uotila worked in New York for four years as a professional musician.
As a drummer, Uotila has played in bands of Randy Brecker and Toots Thielemans, for example, and has also recorded with Chet Baker, Joe Lovano and Joe Henderson, among others. As a pianist, Uotila has become known especially since the 21st century, and he has collaborated with Randy Brecker and Tim Hagans, as well as drummers Ignacio Berroa, Billy Hart and Billy Cobham.
Uotila was active at UMO from 1986 to 1993, and he also conducted the orchestra on a couple of dozen projects. Since the mid-1990s, he has been featured on thirteen albums by Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, including The Music of Jukkis Uotila (2013), which featuring his own big band compositions and arrangements.
Jukkis Uotila has played a key role in Finnish jazz education. He was head of the jazz department at Sibelius Academy from 1986 to 1993, and has worked as a professor since 1994.
Uotila has been awarded Jazz Finland's Yrjö Prize in 1991 and the State Prize for Music in 2011.
The Finnish Jazz Legend Prizes have been awarded since 2001. In 2001–2014, Finnish Big Band Association, Finnish Jazz & Pop Archive and Imatra Big Band Festival awarded a total of 28 Jazz legends. Since 2017, Music Archive Finland has been responsible for distributing the awards.
List of previously awarded Finnish Jazz Legend Prizes:
fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomen_Jazzlegenda
musiikkiarkisto.fi