Jazz Articles about Kari Ikonen

One Man’s Jazz Show 1200th Show Special

by Maurice Hogue
May 12, 2021

This episode of One Man's Jazz marks the 1200th since its very first show at CKUW FM in Winnipeg. It moved over to taintradio.org in early 2012. One of the mantras of the show has always been that the show was about the music and the musicians who make it. I had no illusions of becoming--let along desires to be--some talking jazz head. So with that thought in mind, I decided to approach a number of artists about contributing a ...

Kari Ikonen, Matt Piet, Alberto Pinton & Some New Year's Eve Dancin’

by Maurice Hogue
January 27, 2021

Faced with a New Year's Eve show, this one was extended by two hours, and the last three veered off into dancin' territory. There were some new releases sampled though. In hour one, Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen displays his considerable talents and his “maqiano" for playing Arabic half-tones, on his solo excursion Impressions, Improvisations & Compositions, and Swedish multi-reedist Alberto Pinton checked in with his new All The Difference. In the second hour, you'll hear more solo piano from Matt ...

Kari Ikonen: Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions

by Rob Garratt
January 20, 2021

Twentieth century artists were often known to power their creative process with a jazz soundtrack—Jackson Pollack's frenzied brushstrokes supposedly sparked by bebop horn spurts—while further back loftily enlightened Romantic composers often hoped to distill the essence of other mediums in their work—perhaps most famously with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Jazz musicians taking sonic inspiration from the fruit of visual art may not be entirely uncommon, but for Kari Ikonen it's painterly methods, not products, which ...

Wind, Frost & Radiation with Kari Ikonen

by Nick Davies
August 19, 2018

This show features an interview with pianist Kari Ikonen where we discuss the strength and depth of the Finnish jazz scene as well as his recent trio's album Wind, Frost & Radiation, which is out on Ozella Music. The playlist also include lots of great new music from artists like Fred Hersch and Jessica Lauren. Playlist Fred Hersch “Bristol Fog (For John Taylor)" from Live in Europe (Palmetto) 1:49 Jan Roth “Herbst" from Kleinod (Sinnbus) 11:03 Jessica ...

Kari Ikonen: Bright and The Helsinki Suite

by John Ephland
November 6, 2013

Kari Ikonen Trio Bright Ozella Music 2013 The 40-year-old Finnish keyboardist Kari Ikonen--first heard by this reviewer in a live context in his native homeland with another, much more open and unconventional trio Slo Motive--lets his jazz chops shine, his groove glisten and his range within the music flourish with these two releases. From the first bars of Bright with his frolicking swinger “Bapmgwala" it becomes apparent that Ikonen can be both lyrical and slightly ...

Karikko: Variations on a Theme

by Matthew Wuethrich
November 17, 2003

Siltasali Jyväskylä, Finland November 14, 2003

Ever since bebop and its progeny hard bop, jazz compositions have been vehicles built for soloing. Composers have written relatively simple unison melodies based on some kind of chord progression, both complex and simple. With some notable exceptions, in jazz compositions form (the melody/song structure) has generally followed function (the solo). Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen is working from the opposite direction, exploring the possibilities of powerful themes for smaller jazz ...

Kari Ikonen: Karikko

by Matthew Wuethrich
July 1, 2002

Jazz musicians have offered up as many definitions of “jazz composition" as there are notes in a John Coltrane solo. Yet the basic challenge remains: how to find the right balance between improvisation, the lifeblood of jazz, and composed structures. Kari Ikonen, on his Fiasko Records debut Karikko, artfully answers this challenge with a set of organic, graceful compositions in which one cannot tell where his composing ends and improvising begins. He uses spare instrumentation to create an expansive sound, ...