Home » Jazz Articles » Live Review » We Jazz Festival 2017

2

We Jazz Festival 2017

We Jazz Festival 2017
By

View read count
While one door has closed a host of new ones are opening in Helsinki.
—Anthony Shaw

We Jazz Festival
Helsinki, Finland
December 2-9, 2017

Being a party animal at latitudes above 60 degrees takes some doing in the winter months, in Anchorage as in Archangel. Helsinki is south of both cities, just, but is host to one of Scandinavia's hottest and yet coldest modern jazz festivals in the region.

Maybe it's because of the adversity of the climate, but surely equally due to the enlightened determination of the festival promoters, that the fifth We Jazz Festival has been another great success in terms of music as well as audiences. Once again headliners such as The Necks and the Jochen Rueckert Quartet have performed alongside a slew of Finnish musicians, in a range of venues from the classical, former Tzar Alexander II's Opera House to two very huddled corner cafes in coolest Kallio, an inner city suburb.

Over 60 musicians were involved in the week long program, the majority coming from Finland and surrounding Scandinavian or Baltic countries. The full breadth of genres of music were represented, as in the opening Opera House evening. Although the hypnotic Australian jam jazz (The Necks) were the main act, the evening featured two veterans of the local scene, writer, poet and part time singer M.A.Numminen (also official Festival Guardian Angel) narrating and performing a very Finnish 'Jeepers Creepers,' and then composer and pianist Olli Ahvenlahti back on stage with a new Quartet and a selection of crafted tunes from his new album Thinking Whistling.

The younger spectrum of artists were well represented of course, with Elifantree's release concert, their singer Anni Elif Egecioglu's Edith project, Estonian saxophonist Maria Faust's solo show and much more. One name repeatedly featured in the accompanying 72-page festival magazine is Matti Nives, working as DJ, reporter, producer, writer, compère and more. He and his team at the multifarious We Jazz agency bear all responsibility for establishing this event as an ever more prominent feature in the Nordic artistic calendar, particularly in this 100th year of Finnish independence. And still they found the time, energy and a venue to gather a clutch of the finest Finnish musicians (trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, saxophonist Mikko Innanen's Plop, guitarist Teemu Viinikainen and still others) to celebrate the passing of another rock in the Finnish jazz firmament, record retailer Ilkka 'Emu' Lehtinen. His shop Digelius Records has served as a venue, a meeting place and an outlet for jazz in this city for over 40 years. While one door has closed a host of new ones are opening in Helsinki.

Photo credit: Maarit Kytöharju

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Jazz article: Downtown Tacoma Blues And Jazz Festival 2025
Jazz article: Bark Culture At Solar Myth
Jazz article: Hingetown Jazz Festival 2025

Popular

Read Take Five with Pianist Irving Flores
Read Jazz em Agosto 2025
Read Bob Schlesinger at Dazzle
Read SFJAZZ Spring Concerts
Read Sunday Best: A Netflix Documentary
Read Vivian Buczek at Ladies' Jazz Festival

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.