Results for "Finland"

Flow Festival 2023

by Rob Garratt
August 25, 2023

Flow Festival Suvilahti, Helsinki, Finland August 11-13, 2023 The stark quantity and sheer quality of improvised and instrumental music on offer at Finland's Flow Festival only starts to make sense when you dig into its roots. Once loudly crowned by Vogue as “the Nordics countries' coolest festival"--a fact the event's ...

Rent Romus

Born: January 6, 1968

Rent Romus is a saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, music producer, and community leader hailed by Downbeat as having "...a bold sound, unmistakable sincerity and conviction". A third generation Finnish American born in Hancock Michigan of the Upper Peninsula and growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Romus' work on the saxophone has been dubbed “ferocious” by the San Francisco Weekly and “central to the creative music world of the West Coast” by writer jazz critic Frank Rubolino. From his very beginnings as a student of jazz while being exposed to the twilight tutelage of Stan Getz he found himself drawn to the outer realms of Sun Ra and Albert Ayler, as well as Arthur Blythe, Derek Bailey and Merzbow.

He runs the Lords of Outland a free jazz unit since 1994, the Life’s Blood Ensemble a contemporary original ensemble, and works with pianist Thollem McDonas in the Bloom Project, composer bandleader Heikki "Mike" Koskinen, the collective improvisation group The Ruminations and other various projects.

Rent Romus has recorded music exploring improvisation and composition in a wide variety of musical settings both as a leader and sideman which have included Chico Freeman, John Tchicai, Vinny Golia, Thollem McDonas, Heikki "Mike" Koskinen, Stefan Pasborg, James Zitro, Kash Killion, and Jon Bridsong to name a few.

He is the founder of Edgetone Records with over 30 years of independent music production, and performance experience as well as the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit Outsound Presents under which curates the bi-weekly music series known as SIMM at the Musicians Union Hall, the weekly Luggage Store Gallery Creative Music Series, as well as annual Outsound New Music Summit, the Bay Area's creative music festival held every summer in San Francisco.

Jussi Reijonen At Espoo Cultural Center

by Anthony Shaw
March 16, 2023

Jussi Reijonen Espoo Cultural Center Espoo, FinlandFebruary 24, 2023 Sometimes the best of things come unexpectedly, but considering the one-year anniversary on this date that is certainly not always true. However this gig in the Finnish capital region's Espoo public arts center, including the local library, music school auditorium and ...

Jukka Haavisto

Jukka Haavisto is a new generation bassvirtuoso from Finland. He is a studio- and live musician who currently plays and performs with his newly established focusing on the upcoming release of his debut album and with many different directors, artists, and line-ups such as Jukka Haavisto, Bossapoika, Beat, Bass & Bone, Heiskanen Bayatz Baharat, VENHA sekä Helsinki Headnod Convention. Haavisto studied at University of Stavanger, Institute of Music and Dance, and graduated as Master of Music Performance & jazz improvisation in 2016. Nowadays he is known for his fretless bass, jazz fusion, and world music fusion compositions, and skillful improvisations

Blaser Ducret Bruun Trio at Hakasalmen Huvila

by Anthony Shaw
November 20, 2022

Blaser Ducret Bruun Trio Hakasalmen Huvila Finnish Tour Helsinki November 14, 2022 Samuel Blaser has a glittering past, with glowing reviews of his considerable career in journals from around the globe. The performance of his trio in this modest-but-elegant salon a stone's throw from Helsinki's main railway station, alongside ...

We Jazz Records: Finland's indie label shaking up the global conversation

by Rob Garratt
September 15, 2022

The past decade's genre-bending jazz renaissance has been well-documented, but between the trailblazing players taking improvised music to increasingly hip places, and the ever-growing audience queuing up to hear them, sits the homegrown labels bottling these brave, thrilling (r)evolutions for all to hear. In conversations about the state of jazz today, it's often easier to distil ...

Pori Jazz 2022

by Rob Garratt
August 3, 2022

Pori Jazz 2022 Kirjurinluoto Concert Park jny:Pori, Finland July 14-16, 2022 If this year's 55th annual Pori Jazz festival had a “moment," it was when Immanuel Wilkins invited Shabaka Hutchings to the stage as a surprise guest for a dazzling 14-minute duet that capped the former's spellbinding set, ...

Raoul Björkenheim and eCsTaSy at Sello Hall in Espoo

by Anthony Shaw
April 4, 2022

Raoul Björkenheim and eCsTaSy with Juhani Aaltonen Sello Hall Espoo, Finland March 25, 2022 When guitarist Raoul Björkenheim and the rest of the all-Finnish eCsTaSy took the stage at the local arts venue in Espoo, the audience were still streaming into the the hall after the intermission--such ...

Naissam Jalal - The Quest of the Invisible at Savoy Theater in Helsinki

by Anthony Shaw
February 26, 2022

Naissam Jalal -The Quest of the Invisible Savoy Theater Helsinki, Finland February 22, 2022 Naissam Jalal was everything this audience needed on a very snowy February evening in downtown Helsinki. Not only had the concert already been postponed for two years, but it happened to coincide with the second ...

Kirsi-Marja Harju

Born: January 27, 1993

Kirsi-Marja “Kiki” Harju (1993) is a Finnish trumpet player, singer, bandleader and composer based in Amsterdam. “I didn’t choose the trumpet, the trumpet chose me,” she recalls. “I wanted to play everything else, particularly violin, but as a kid I made mistakes in the music school exam, I was so nervous.” She was put into the wind department, given a pocket trumpet and soon found she could play beautiful melodies. She also sang. “My friends said I was too loud but I loved it. I was in choirs and vocal groups at school. Later I heard Chet Baker and realised I could combine the two.”

She has studied music both in Finland and in The Netherlands, and lastly she graduated from the jazz department of Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 2019