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Jazz Articles about Verneri Pohjola
Sylvain Rifflet: Troubadours
by Anthony Shaw
Sylvain Rifflet has been playing adventurous, somewhat rock-related jazz for since around 2000, and for much of the time has done so alongside a trumpeter. His emergence on the international scene in the first decade of this century was with the French quintet Rockingchair, where his co-leader was contemporary French trumpeter, Arielle Besson. They were awarded a 'Django d'Or' medal for their first album and subsequent releases have been well received. On the 2019 album Troubadour, Rifflet is ...
Continue ReadingPauli Lyytinen Magnetia Orkesteri: Hypnosis
by Friedrich Kunzmann
It can be interpreted as quite the democratic statement when an album from a saxophonist is introduced with an almost two-minute long drum solo that solely focuses on the percussive qualities of the instrument. Which is exactly what drummer Mika Kallio does on the opening segment of the Finnish saxophonist Pauli Lyytinen's sophomore album with the Magnetia Orkesteri. It doesn't take a professional translator to figure out that this quartet's name has something to with magnetism and is referred to ...
Continue ReadingVerneri Pohjola: The Dead Don't Dream
by Ian Patterson
The photo on the front cover shows a levitating Verneri Pohjola. A rising star? That tag might have been appropriate at the time of Aurora (ACT Music, 2009), but the brilliant subsequent albums Bullhorn (2015) and Pekka (2017), both on Edition Records, confirmed the Finnish trumpeter's arrival at the top table of European jazz. Pohjola's distinctive tone--lyrical yet with a visceral edge--and his melodic improvisations and compositional flare are common to all his albums, though no two sound the same. ...
Continue ReadingSylvain Rifflet: Troubadours
by Angelo Leonardi
In questo decennio il sassofonista Sylvain Rifflet s'è imposto tra gli emergenti più eclettici del jazz francese con dischi molto apprezzati, come l'audace Mechanics (Jazz Village 2015) e l'orchestrale Refocus (Verve 2017). In quest'ultimo ha voluto affermare la sua filiazione per Stan Getz (di cui rilegge l'album Focus) anche se la vicinanza è solo timbrica e la ricerca espressiva è ampiamente personale. In questo nuovo lavoro cambia ancora direzione e s'ispira alle musiche dei trovatori nell'Occitania del 12° ...
Continue ReadingVerneri Pohjola: Pekka
by Friedrich Kunzmann
On this sophomore release with Edition Records Verneri Pohjola reinterprets the music of his late father, Pekka Pohjola. Pekka was an internationally acclaimed jazz- fusion/progressive-rock multi-instrumentalist, best known for his chops on the bass during his ventures in the 70s and 80s, collaborating, among others, with Mike Oldfield. Due to his father having been educated primarily in classical music, the compositions, while very diverse and at times Frank Zappa influenced, often integrate classical cadences that tend to allude to more ...
Continue ReadingVerneri Pohjola: Pekka
by Roger Farbey
The highly-anticipated follow-up to Verneri Pohjola's widely acclaimed 2015 album Bullhorn consolidates his position as Finland's foremost jazz musician. His prodigious talent is hardly surprising given that his late father was the internationally acclaimed jazz-influenced prog-rock bassist and composer Pekka Pohjola, who died in 2008 aged just 56. This album is a reworking of some of Pohjola senior's tunes, but integrated into his son's vibrant compositions. It necessarily takes a different turn from Pohjola's previous album, harnessing elements of jazz ...
Continue ReadingVerneri Pohjola: Pekka
by Karl Ackermann
Finnish multi-instrumentalist Pekka Pohjola was a classically trained pianist and violinist but known best as a bassist in his native country. The proponent of a unique fusion of jazz, progressive rock and classical music, his work had elements of Frank Zappa, King Crimson and Antonín Dvořák, sometimes all within a single composition. Pohjola died while only in his fifties, somewhat distanced from his family by a life on the road. His son, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, has been building his own ...
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