A good review on our show last friday in Lahti! Google translate also wanted to give our international friends a change to check it out, so here:
"ETELÄ-SUOMEN SANOMAT 20.8.2016
Lahden Rantajazz: Django Collective Helsinki, Umo Jazz Orchestra Goes Count Basie feat. Sami Pitkämö
Lahden Rantajazz: Django Collective Helsinki, Umo Jazz Orchestra Goes Count Basie feat. Sami Pitkämö
Lahti cultural life seems livelier today than ever before. If you look at things from the perspective of live music, so the current weekend in the city have been felt from rock, blues, prog and jazz in particular - this is a new, six-day Gulf Beach Jazz event thanks. On Friday evening, the port of Cape familiarized with the old and even older tradition.
Evening started Django Collective Helsinki with a superb concert. As the name suggests the band focuses on the most important European jazz musicians, belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt repertoire and, above all, the spirit of this: a five-strong collective feeling absorbed the gypsy jazz of Swing, yearning and passion in a profound way. Guitarists Aki Hauru, Kimmo Kettunen Iltanen and Tom are all talented musicians, but even more remarkable is how their performance as individuals that support all: this music is all done at the right time, according to its own internal logic. Reinhardt bedfellows, the role of the violinist Stéphane Grappelli is a collective embraced regal Laura Airola, whose solos assured after the other. Also, bassist Tero Tuovinen took care of the plot well, though the bass was mixed throughout the evening too low. The band did not feel just renewing old, as their solos also ventured into use of modern approaches, which brought a new lease of life standards such as Black eyes, waves of the Danube and Smile.
The second appeared in the good old Umo Jazz Orchestra, soloist in many ehtivä Sami Pitkämö. Their concert focused on the legendary bandleader Count Basie software - on your keywords, therefore, swing, big band music and Sinatra. All parts of this equation is, of course, already been proven effective many times: Umon musicians know-how is a kind of self-evident, as is also the case with Basie material. It has touched and delighted people in as many places as for many times that nuriseminen would feel strange. Still, it should be noted that the swing-concerts and Sinatra tribute Lahdessakin already consulted several times a year, and big orchestras would take some handling, say, Mingus' compositions.
Vocalist Pitkämö seemed at first a little holding back, but no later Every Day I Have the Blues classic fully lit by the audience. It is good that Pitkämö tries to sing more in their own way than to mimic Sinatra. Jouni Järvelä led the band smoothly, and special mention yet genuinely hard-hitting solos drummer Ville Pynssille.
Petri Poutiainen"
