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Antti Lotjonen
Antti Lötjönen, Trevor Watts, & Adam Pieronczyk
by Maurice Hogue
Last episode's theme of interesting bass playing continues into this show with a pair from France (Hubert Dupont & Olivier Lété, Per Zanussi from Norway, Andrew Schiller, and Finland's Antti Lötjönen, but there's plenty of saxophone action from the likes England's Alex Ward & Trevor Watts, Rick Countryman with Interstellar Nao Trio from Mexico, Ivo Perelman, Avram Fefer, Muriel Grossmann from Spain and Poland's Adam Pieronczyk among others. Playlist Avram Fefer Quartet “Show Time" from Juba Lee (Clean ...
read moreChoose Joy
by John Chacona
What should music sound like as the world emerges from the musical Ice Age of the pandemic years? An elegiac tone is an inevitable and perhaps necessary acknowledgment of the desolation of those years. Equally valid is an expression of joy and gratitude for the transformative power of music to heal and uplift. In their own way and with their motivations, the nine musicians from three nations represented on these releases reaffirm the unquenchable desire to create and inspire.
read moreEmma Salokoski with Ilmiliekki: Joulu Joulu Jul
by Anthony Shaw
If you are looking for a novel way of approaching the December 2022 festive season, musically speaking, and are not deterred by a mixture of Nordic languages, then this album may appeal. The songs are sung in Swedish and Finnish, and without any accompanying lyric sheet an English speaker might do well to search for lyrics online. Keen observers of the Nordic jazz scene will know the band behind the album from its prominence in the mid 2000s, following victory ...
read moreIlmiliekki Quartet: Ilmiliekki Quartet
by Pat Youngspiel
When opener “Three Queens" kicks off seemingly mid-motion, Verneri Pohjola, Tuomo Prättälä, Antti Lötjönen and Olavi Louhivuori—a foursome going by the name of Ilmiliekki Quartet—sound as though they've already been at it for a while. They're all warmed up, in complete sync and have found a common groove at which they're smoothly tugging and pulling in a united front. There is a stumbling notion to how the piano keys fall from one chord into another, constructing cadences and voicings as ...
read moreYelena Eckemoff: Adventures of the Wildflower
by Mark Sullivan
The last time composer/pianist Yelena Eckemoff recorded in Finland she led a quintet on Blooming Tall Phlox (L&H Production, 2017). The program was devoted to smells, particularly the phlox flower and other scents remembered from childhood. Here she returns to Finland with a sextet (including several returning players, basically the entire rhythm section) and a related concept: the life cycle of a wildflower. The mood of the music is well captured in the smiling band photo on the back of ...
read moreYelena Eckemoff: Adventures of the Wildflower
by Dan McClenaghan
The seeds of pianist-composer Yelena Eckemoff's Adventures Of The Wildflower were planted in 2013, when she traveled to Hollola, Finland, to record Blooming Tall Phlox (L&H Productions, 2017) with a group of young Finnish musicians. Several Eckemoff albums came about after that recording, but the experience with her Finnish friends must have exerted a sort of gravitational pull, and in 2019 she made a return trip to the country to team with vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, bassist Antti Lotjonen and drummer ...
read moreAntti Lotjonen Quintet East: ALQE
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Bassist Antti Lötjönen is anything but a small name in the Finnish jazz cosmos. Holding down the deep frequency spectrum in some of the country's most renowned instrumental outfits, such as the electronica-infused jazz trio 3TM or the acoustic Ilmiliekki Quartet, Lötjönen has established a cunning reputation as a sideman leading up to this, his debut release as a leader with the so-called Quintet East. Accordingly high are the expectations of a musician of his caliber—expectations which are more than ...
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