Jazz breaking news: Alexi Tuomarila and Kahden Miehen Galaksi get hot in Helsinki
Monday, December 16, 2013
Staging a six-day jazz festival ‘off season’, a couple of weeks before Christmas when gift shopping and office parties are in full swing, might seem like a risky undertaking.
Yet the sold out gigs and palpable buzz of expectation crackling around Finland’s chilly but user-friendly capital made the point that this inaugural edition of WeJazz did the right thing at the right time. Furthermore, it did the local thing, placing several of the country’s groups under the spotlight, making the point that Scandinavia’s talent pool has considerable strength in depth. Black Motor was a case in point and gave a powerful demonstration of the ‘New Bottle Old Wine’ theory. Appearing at the atmospheric Koko club, the bass-drums-saxophone trio was joined by trumpeter Verneri Pohjola to play the music of the trailblazing Edward Vesala, one of several players who put Finnish jazz on the map in the 1970s. They potently captured the yearning, hymnal quality of his compositions while adding their own flashes of individuality, particularly drummer Simo Laihonen.
Also engaging was Mopo, another bass-drums-saxophone trio that brings a fair dose of playfulness and puckish spirit to music that bounces along quite joyously. Enjoyable as their set was, there were times when the hearty, twisty blues-rock riffs and punchy vocal choruses could have been rounded out by a touch more improvisation, especially from drummer Eeti Nieminen. He looks to have the making of a considerable talent. Sibelius Academy students AR Quartet could also evolve into something worthwhile if they conjoin a bolder personality to their technical prowess while the institution’s head of jazz, the saxophonist Jussi Kannaste, showed good chops in NY Connection, an incisive Finnish-American quartet co-led by drummer Jaska Lukkarinen and pianist Roy Assaf.
More internationalism came in the shape of the Tomasz Stańko quintet. The Polish trumpeter headlined a triple bill at the grand Savoy Theatre featuring inventive pianist Joona Toivanen and soul-jazz saxophonist Timo Lassy. Although Stańko’s shadowy, svelte lyricism was impressively sharp the group sound was somewhat compromised by the thin, spindly tone of Danish bass guitarist Anders Christensen. In fact, the limelight was stolen by Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila (pictured above top). His dazzling solos, full of pummeling attack and waspish shifts of harmony, drew the biggest rounds of applause. If that grand finale gig, clocking in at four hours, was a touch too epic, then the festival signed off with a small but perfectly formed surprise package: the charmingly aggressive organ-drums duo Kahden Miehen Galaksi (bottom left). Channeling anybody from Soft Machine to early Jimi Tenor via Larry Young, they constantly switched from terse, compact hip-hop backbeats to fluid, freewheeling grooves bathed in a sea of oddball sounds that sent a noticeable tremor of excitement around the heaving Kuudes Linja club.
– Kevin Le Gendre