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Five Corners Quintet

The Five Corners Quintet is a Helsinki-based postmodern jazz outfit influenced by early sixties straight ahead and latin jazz. Led by producer Tuomas Kallio the Five Corners Quintet is a new extension of the highly acclaimed Nuspirit Helsinki collective.

The two innovators behind Five Corners Quintet, composer, producer and arranger Tuomas Kallio and the band's benevolent svengali and record label manager Antti Eerikäinen initially were simply set out to release a few vinyl singles of stylish jazz music tailored for the dance floor. As the first three vinyl single releases received a huge response among the press and international taste makers and at the same were all sold out, The Five Corners Quintet project slowly evolved into an established and more serious phase. This meant two things: setting up a live band and a CD-album project.

The debut album Chasin' The Jazz Gone By came out in September 2005, spent 11 weeks in the Finnish album TOP-40 chart and has been released in Europe (SonyBMG and Ricky-Tick Records/Timewarp), USA (Milan Entertainment/WEA) and Japan (Columbia International). The album and the vinyl singles preceding it have already sold more than 40.000 copies in total. Not bad for a jazz recording in 2005.

In musical terms the goal of TFCQ is to set an example of how dance floor friendly contemporary production can fruitfully meet the musical craftsmanship of the past, creating music that sounds as hip as the classic jazz records but is at the same time structurally polished and easily accessible music of today. Not housey nu-jazz, but jazz in the classic modernist spirit.

Studio production

In studio the Five Corners Quintet is a contemporary project dictated by producer Tuomas Kallio and gathering separately the right people for each song from a pool of musicians that are some of the finest players in the Finnish and international jazz scene. Musical production is utilizing both the analog and digital domain, drawing on tools from tape recorders to samplers and sequencers. Even though the final sound and feel is a lot alike, the production approach of TFCQ is thus entirely different from a mid-20th century studio setting.

Live band

The Five Corners Quintet performing live is another story. The live band is a phenomenal jazz quintet--or at times a sextet or even bigger--that can appeal both to a critical seated jazz audience and a dancing club crowd. On stage The Five Corners Quintet is a real band featuring the cream of Finnish jazzmen: no machines, no samplers, no DJ's but instead a lot of energy, interaction and world class level of musicianship.

Awards

TFCQ received the Japanese ADLIB Magazine International New Star of the Year 2005 award in December and was nominated for the TEOSTO-award in Finland. Three Corners-track was selected as a Gilles Peterson's Worldwide All Winners Cut of 2004 on BBC Radio One while the Chasin' The Jazz Gone By was nominated for best album of 2005.


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241
Album Review

The Five Corners Quintet: Chasin' The Jazz Gone By

Read "Chasin' The Jazz Gone By" reviewed by Budd Kopman


Chasin' The Jazz Gone By is the product of producer Tuomas Kallio, who wanted to recreate, using both analog and digital equipment, the sound and the visceral coolness of jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, which means the Blue Note sound of hard bop. And make no mistake, this record is very, very cool, deeply enjoyable in an almost time-warp way. The Five Corners Quintet actually exists in two forms, live and recorded. The live group routinely ...

195
Live Review

The Five Corners Quintet at Dizzy's Club-Coca Cola

Read "The Five Corners Quintet at Dizzy's Club-Coca Cola" reviewed by Budd Kopman


The Five Corners QuintetDizzy's Club-Coca ColaNew York CityJune 11, 2007 During the Spring at Dizzy's Club, Monday nights are generally set aside for program called Upstarts!, and on this night the music and band were from Finland. The Five Corners Quintet comes with the mission of bringing jazz to a new, young audience, getting them physically moving, even dancing. Their jazz style of choice is from the golden age of hard ...

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182

Recording

The Five Corners Quintet - Dynamic Finnish Dancefloor Jazz Sophomore Release "Hot Corner"

The Five Corners Quintet - Dynamic Finnish Dancefloor Jazz Sophomore Release "Hot Corner"

Source: All About Jazz

"About as hip as you can get without throwing your back out" --ALL ABOUT JAZZ

In 2005, The Five Corners Quintet from Helsinki took the international dancefloor jazz scene by a storm. Chasin' the Jazz Gone By, their debut for Ricky-Tick Records, a label that was initially conceived of as a vehicle for releasing the very first TFCQ vinyl single, proved out to be both an artistic and a commercial success story. For once and for all, the album proved ...

199

Recording

The Five Corners Quintet

The Five Corners Quintet

Source: All About Jazz

It may be of no surprise that a band should release a few vinyl singles that filter to key tastemakers to critical acclaim. That they should receive praise from an ever-increasing underground scene, and that the hype surrounding them escalates beyond a core. Indeed, that sales of those singles should quickly reach over 12,000, and they find themselves performing on Top of the Pops in their home country. But in the case of the Helsinki-based postmodern jazz outfit, the Five ...

"...they have the potential to become a major draw on the European Jazz Circuit." --Stuart Nicholson, The Observer, 28.8.2005

"...the players have internalized these historical styles so they can have fun with them. ...the repetitive riffs on Blueprint and Trading Eights are as deep and hooky as anything in dub or techno... thoroughly enjoyable young band." --John L. Walters, The Guardian on TFCQ live at Jazz Cafe 12.09.2005

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Hot Corner

Milan Records
2009

buy

Chasin' The Jazz Gone...

Ricky-Tick Records
2008

buy

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Nicola Conte
multi-instrumentalist

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