Juhani Aaltonen's and Heikki Sarmanto's new live album out in November
This intimate live recording by the two Godfathers of modern Finnish Jazz is way beyond just being a document of a musical moment. It is, in fact, an expression of a friendship, which spans six decades, and a cooperation, produced a vast amount of groundbreaking music, which these two great Artists managed to create together over time.
Both Heikki Sarmanto and Juhani Aaltonen studied at the Helsinki Sibelius Academy, and later at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and they both played together on many iconic albums recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which shaped the modern Finnish Jazz scene at the time. They both continued their separate career, and performed and recorded together over the years, wherever an opportunity to do so has arisen.
By listening to their recordings, one easily observes that they are able to communicate telepathically, which is not completely surprising, considering their common roots based in the great Finnish music tradition, in all of its manifestations, such as the diverse Folkloristic roots, Classical traditions of Jean Sibelius and many other Finnish composers, and of course the Finnish Jazz pioneers of the early swing and the exploding era of innovation since the 1960s, which brought an entire generation of Finnish modernists and experimentalists, such as Esa Pethman, Otto Donner, Edward Vesala, Eero Koivistoinen and countless others, who played along with Sarmanto and Aaltonen, creating one of the finest and most sophisticated European Jazz manifestations.
Coming back to the music at hand, which was completely spontaneously developed and inspired on the spur of the moment, offering another facet of the meeting, which becomes a wonderful example of the “Art of the Duo” phenomenon, and which is one of the most inspiring manifestations of Jazz Music. The music is exactly what this idiom means: a metaphysical union of creative minds, which act as one and are way more than just a sum of its parts.
I feel gratified to be able to witness this great union of two musical Geniuses from the very early days, and of course happy to see it still lasts, hoping for it to continue, as long as fate will allow. Thank you, dear Friends, for this gift of Music!
1. Early Hours
2. Sea Birds
3. Blue Tones
4. The Play of Waves
5. Evening Haze
6. Immigrants
7. Some Blues
8. Departure
