New Jazz From Finland 2024
The fresh sounds of Finnish jazz at Opus Jazz Club
21–22 November

Together with the Finnish Institute in Hungary, FinnAgora, we again dedicate a weekend to the fresh and thought-provoking world of Finnish jazz this autumn. On November 21, Uusi Aika fills Opus with an unhurried flow of mysterious sounds, and on 22 November, Sole Azul expresses grand emotions through reinterpreted tangos.

Uusi Aika's music flows with unhurried pace, echoing elements of folk music, Japanese aesthetics, early 20th century art music and jazz tradition. Mysterious sonorities and powerful melodies are at the core of their sound, but Otto Eskelinen, Antero Mentu, Eero Tikkanen and Amanda Blomqvist do not forget the role of free improvisation either. Their musical world seems introspective and meditative at first, but that's only the surface: although the instrumentation is acoustic to the bone, the slowly unfolding character of their music may sometimes bring abstract electronic or experimental dub music to mind. The sound palette of the quartet is flavoured with exotic instruments such as the Indian sitar and the Japanese shakuhachi flute.

Drawing on the stylistics of jazz and contemporary classical music, and the practice of free improvisation, Sole Azul gives voice to grand emotions through both tango-inspired originals and new arrangements of existing tangos. After his instruments were stolen during a tour in Azul, Argentina, Harri Kuusijärvi returned home to find himself writing tangos. Soon he filled a whole show with these compositions together with Pauli Lyytinen and Eero Tikkanen. After World War Two, the Finnish tango, radically different from its Argentine counterpart, swept across the country and became deeply embedded in Finnish culture. The trio is thus not only discovering an element of their own national identity, but has also found a way to get a musical payback for the stolen instruments. In their name, Azul refers to the ominous Argentine city, while Sole is the synonym of carefree attitude.

Tickets for the festival's two concerts are available for 3500 HUF on the spot, online at bmc.jegy.hu, and at InterTicket Jegypont partners across Hungary.