Saturday 5 September 2009

Finn Free

Sorry for the silence, I've been occupied by other interests.

To make up for the long absence, I'm this time posting two LP's at the same time. They're both Finnish Free Jazz from the early 1980's and both essential.

The first one is Prana by Juhani Aaltonen, Reggie Workman and Edward Vesala, which is by all accounts one of the (if not THE) shiniest gems of pre-2k Finnish free jazz. Finland has always had a dry, hard soil for this kind of improvised greatness to flourish, so only a handful of records have ever come to existence. This is one of the few.

Here's the info:

Juhani Aaltonen: Prana - Live at Groovy (Leo Records LEO 013)

Juhani Aaltonen: tenor saxophone & flute
Reggie Workman: bass
Edward Vesala: drums

Recorded live at the club Groovy, Helsinki, 2th of August, 1981. Engineered by Jouko Ahera.

Download HERE

The other one I'm posting is the debut leader date of Krakatau and Sound & Fury saxophonist Jone Takamäki. It's free jazz with some "shamanistic" aspects, of which I myself am not so fond of, but nevertheless when things pick up, it's some totally worthwhile stuff. Excellent even. Do check it out.

Here's the info:

Jone Takamäki: s/t (Johanna JHN 2030)

Jone Takamäki: tenor and soprano saxophone, flutes, percussion, voice
Antti Hytti: bass, African thumb piano, Indian harmonium, voice
Samppa Salmi: drums, accordion, voice

Recorded by Tom Vuori , 15. - 20. 12. 1980.

Download HERE


Enjoy and do comment. I'll try to post more soon.

7 comments:

  1. btw .... I love the Takamäki one ... great find, no idea, incredible ... already knew about prana, thanks a lot

    also tried that dauner, also incredible ... there´s another van hove/dauner split lp in the same vein ... i'm trying nykoop ... no idea either ... thanks

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  2. thanks, it's always great to make unknown music known.

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  3. Here is an image for Jone Takamaki:
    http://www.primecuts.fi/primecuts/primecut.nsf/6eceaadb01354d76c2256ca60043466e/5718321cbf58105cc225712b003b7be9!OpenDocument

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  4. completely new to my ears, in fact most everything posted on your site is. thanks for sharing.

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  5. Thanks for arousing my curiosity about Finland's free jazz legacy. Not sure why it hadn't occurred to me to look into Finnish jazz before, considering how much great new classical music is coming from Finnish composers (Saariaho, Salonen, Lindberg, et al)

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  6. The Takamaki was completely unknown to me -- it's very nice. (I like the shamanistic bits too.)

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