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Jazz Articles about Juhani Aaltonen & Iro Haarla

About Juhani Aaltonen & Iro Haarla

Album Review

Juhani Aaltonen & Iro Haarla: Kirkastus

Read "Kirkastus" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
February 28, 2016

On the sublime Kirkastus saxophonist & flutist Juhani Aaltonen and pianist & harpist Iro Haarla engage in a series of intimate and impressionistic duets that brim with lyricism and spontaneity. A definite spirituality marks all ten of Haarla's compositions and, although various Psalms inspired most, the sacred nature of the music goes beyond strict religious boundaries to a universal and timeless devotional state. The ethereal “Long Sole Sound," for instance, has a Zen serenity. Haarla's strummed, sparse harp strings form ...

Album Review

Juhani Aaltonen & Iro Haarla: Kirkastus

Read "Kirkastus" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
November 27, 2015

The most striking thing about Kirkastus--a duo outing by a pair of seasoned Finnish free jazzers, saxophonist Juhani Aaltonen and pianist/harpist Iro Haarla--is the unalloyed beauty of the sound they've made. Aaltonen, in his eighth decade now, has the longer term veteran's credentials. His saxophone style draws from late period John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, with moments of growling and feral roars, subdued and refined here, and set beside moments of reverie and introspection and nuanced story-telling, with the occasional ...