Five talented jazz bands were presented in the annual Young Nordic Jazz Comets showcase on the 29th of October in Tampere, Finland, as the showcase officially opened the 34th Tampere Jazz Happening festival. Next year the YNJC travels to Northern Sweden, to Umeå Jazz Festival.
This year’s Young Nordic Jazz Comets representatives from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland performed -- in addition to a full house of fans of jazz -- to a large number of promoters and members of jazz media at Tampere’s Klubi.
The perfect opening for the night hopped onto the stage in the form of the Swedish duo Lyssarides/Karnebäck’s and their smooth and folkish jazz. While identical in instrumentation – the saxophone and the piano – the Suedes’ style nodded to the tradition somewhat more than that of their Danish colleagues, McCoy/Bremer, up next. The latter group’s meditative Danish-Jamaican dub jazz, where electronic soundscapes were tinged with folk, was sheer zen to the ears.
The limelight was directed to the Finnish Katu Kaiku next, and this trio, led by saxophonist Adele Sauros, did indeed play as one should in their home ground. Shuttling boldly from rhythmic bonfire to cinematic, melodic feels Katu Kaiku proved that they have what it takes for becoming more than just a shooting star.
Norwegian composer-saxophonist Mette Henriette brought along a moment of pregnant calm. Her crew was composed of cellist Katrine Schiøtt and pianist Johan Lindvall with sound artist Eirik Haynes as a special reinforcement. That the trio recently found a home with the revered label ECM was both visible and audible: brimming with an aura of confident professionalism, the trio enchanted Klubi with their Scandinavian mysticism and fresh sounds of nature.
The closing act of the night, Icelandic quartet Two Beat Dogs, relied on straight-ahead jazz with a capital j. With the well-tried recipe of reciprocal solos as a cornerstone, the group delivered guitarist Brian Massaka’s and saxophonist Sölvi Kolbeínsson’s compositions with an irrepressible energy and joy that penetrated the whole venue.
What the YNJC showcase proved was that today’s Scandinavian jazz is everything that jazz can be: approachable, challenging, mystical, easy, rhythmic, free, formulaic, traditional, experimental, bold, delicate, explosive, lingering… In short: undefinable and always open to interpretation.
This was the first year for the YNJC to take place under the protection of a reputable jazz festival. Next year’s host has been confirmed as Sweden’s Umeå Jazz Festival where YNJC will travel in October 2016.
Organised since 2000, the Young Nordic Jazz Comets is an event that aims at presenting jazz from young, up-and-coming Scandinavian musicians, increasing awareness of new Scandinavian jazz among audiences and concert organisers and offering the future generation of jazz a chance to show what they have got.
In 2012 the concept underwent a minor-scale transformation from a jazz competition into a showcase event where international concert organisers, promoters and members of the media are invited to witness the best of new Scandinavian jazz ensembles. The rationale behind the shake-up was to offer young artists better opportunities for a more stable career-development rather than booking them a number of individual concerts. Each Nordic country provides one group and each country’s central jazz organisation is involved in the funding and production of the project. As for Finland, the body in responsible is the Finnish Jazz Federation.
Picture: Katu Kaiku by Maarit Kytöharju