We Jazz brings hot jazz to Freezin´ Finland

This place is cool. Not so big, but not super small either. First you must climb a flight of stairs, then you're in the middle of the cosy bar. On the left is the stage and in front of it, separated from the bar by a wall, is space for those who really want to hear the concert that is already playing. The Ilmiliekki Quartet is playing, an illustrious foursome with some of the most exciting names on the young Finnish jazz scene. Verneri Pohjola (pictured top), for example, plays the trumpet, and on this evening, he always plays it a little bit cloudy, with a melancholic undertone. Just as the sound of this band only sometimes rises and seeks its way into brightness and boldness. The bass is played by Antti Lötjönen Quintet East, a combo with three wind players, including the two saxophonists Jonas Kullhammar and Jussi Kannaste and of course trumpeter Verneri Pohjola. This quintet relies heavily on improvisational communication between each other, which however can get a little tiring over the course of a concert.

To get to the venue of Lötjönen's band and the other acts of the evening, you have to know your way around Helsinki a bit. The venues of We Jazz are spread all over the city anyway; every evening it goes somewhere different. This has been part of the concept since 2013, the year of the first festival edition. Young sax player Linda Fredriksson (above - photo by Maarit Kytöharju) for example presents their solo debut album Juniper (on We Jazz Records, by the way) on the second floor of an interesting shop in the middle of the shopping street in the centre of Helsinki. At the performances in a rather unadorned hall called Mittarikorjaamo, you have to take your shoes off every time. Why, actually, none of the visitors knows. And some of them don't like to do it either, as a little snow is already falling outside. So, you're glad when your feet are warm and stay warm. But it is worth taking off the shoes for of the very melodic, timelessly beautiful jazz of the quartet of Finnish pianist Riitta Paakki, with, you might have guessed, Antti Lötjönen playing the bass. Warming music.

This year, festival organiser Matti Nives and his dedicated crew will also let jazz resound in a funk and techno club a little way from the centre of Helsinki. The building has two halls, and you can wander from one to the other if you don't like something. With the Joona Toivanen Trio, however, it is worthwhile to linger, because the pianist and his two comrades-in-arms on bass and drums create a multi-coloured palette of sounds from engaging melodies and moments, which they repeatedly expand and colour in between with sound treatments in an exciting way. Their brilliant new album Both Only will be out next February on We Jazz Records. 

The electro-acoustic quartet Y-Otis by the Berlin-based Swedish saxophonist Otis Sandsjö, on the other hand, offers exactly the music that is needed at midnight. Loud, modern, ever-so-slightly modified sounds, with hip-hop grooves and shimmering saxophone lines, perfect for head-nodding and swinging along. Club jazz that quite rightly creates a lot of enthusiasm among the audience.

But not only music, with a gratifyingly strong focus on the domestic, the exciting Finnish jazz scene, was to be found in the rich festival programme. In a panel discussion, for example, the artistic director of the Jazzfest Berlin, Nadin Deventer, spoke about courageous programming. And the American writer Ashley Kahn illuminated John Coltrane's masterpiece A Love Supreme in great detail, providing fascinating insights into the making of this album of the century by the unforgettable jazz legend.