Jazz Articles

UMO Jazz Orchestra: Transit People

by C. Michael Bailey
June 1, 2001

The spirit of John Coltrane shines brightly through the UMO Jazz Orchestra.

The UMO Jazz orchestra made their Naxos Jazz debut among the first six releases from the new label in 1998 with their self-titled disc ( UMO Orchestra, Naxos Jazz 86010). The orchestra performed a bright progressive type of big band jazz that listeners have come to expect of European, specifically Scandinavian, orchestras. UMO has never been frightened away from a pricklier repertoire and they take John Coltrane nuggets ...

UMO Jazz Orchestra with Kenny Wheeler & Norma Winstone: One More Time

by Glenn Astarita
October 1, 2000

One More Time is the latest by Finland’s eminent “UMO Jazz Orchestra”. And as a follow up to their noteworthy 1999 electric-Miles based release aptly titled “Electrifying Miles”, featuring trumpeter Tim Hagans, the band now performs alongside renowned trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and the extraordinary vocalist, Norma Winstone.

Wheeler composed all of these pieces as the music typifies the trumpeter’s familiar -soaring skyward – approach enhanced by his conveyance of yearning or soul-searching lines. On “The One More Time Suite”, the ...

UMO Jazz Orchestra: Selected Standards

by Jack Bowers
February 1, 1999

Finland’s superb and customarily adventurous 24–year–old UMO Jazz Orchestra devotes its attention to the Great American Songbook on Selected Standards, reframing these familiar works to suit its Nordic temperament and imparting to them a personality that’s as fresh and invigorating as a tone poem by Sibelius. From the marching drum, dancing piccolo and shifting time signatures that introduce “Indiana” to the shuffling rhythms and rap vocal at the onset of Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale,” these are timeworn standards with ...