Trygve Seim Helsinki Songs Quartet

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Trygve Seim Helsinki Songs Quartet

new ecm album
tour dates on request 2019

Tryygve Seim. Educated a jazz musician (saxophone) at the jazz conservatory in Trondheim. Since 1992 working full time as a musician, composer and arranger. Released 9 records on the prestigious german record label ECM, whereas 7 of them as a band leader and composer and/or co-leader and playing on 23 ECM-releases in total.

Kristjan Randalu
is one of the most compelling pianists of his generation, sought after as soloist, collaborator, composer and arranger, his music described by Jazz Times as an "unnameable exotic land". Born in Estonia in 1978 he moved with his family to Germany as a child where the piano became increasingly important to him. His teachers there included John Taylor in Cologne, followed by a time at the Royal Academy of Music in London (with Django Bates) and a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

Mats Eilertsen from Trondheim has long established itself as one of the foremost bassists and composers of Norwegian jazz. He has performed in a number of different contexts, and in recent years he has also had a solo career on rising courses. At "Skydive" he reaches a preliminary highlight.

Markku Ounaskari first studied drums at the Oulunkylä Pop and Jazz Conservatory and, beginning in 1987, at the Jazz Department of the Sibelius Academy. During this period, his professional career also began when he toured and recorded with two legendary Finnish groups, Piirpauke (Algazara in 1987 and Zerenade in 1989) and the Pekka Pohjola Group (Changing Waters in 1998). Beginning in the 1990s, Ounaskari made a number of recordings and toured in Europe, Asia and the Americas with pianist Jarmo Savolainen (John’s Song in 1996, Another Story in 1997, Times Like These in 2002, Grand Style 2004 and Songs For Trio in 2006). Ounaskari has played with all the major Finnish jazz figures (journalist Petri Silas once wrote that it would be easier to list the Finnish ensembles with which Ounaskari has not played). Early in his career he also toured and recorded with both Piirpauke and the Pekka Pohjola Group, Finnish pioneers of cross-genre music.

Trygve Seim has always looked to the east in many ways. From the nineties to Edward Vesala's Finland through his collaboration with Edward and all the musicians around him, later as far as Rumi's old Persia, or to the Indian, Armenian and Arab music heritage, but sometimes no more than Finnskogen through his collaboration with Sinikka Langeland. With the band Helsinki Songs, Seim is somewhere in the middle. Most of the songs of Helsinki Songs (including the title song Helsinki Song) were composed during Seim's many writing stays in the Finnish composers' association's Helsinki apartment. In addition, the addresses of the Quartet members form a geographical axis with Helsinki as a centerpiece, and Seim has been playing with a number of Finnish musicians for over 20 years - it began with Edward Vesala in 1996, and after his passing a few years later Vesala's former fellow musician and wife, Iro Haarla, collaborated with Seim, and in addition Seim has played with many other Finnish musicians, including Samuli Mikkonen and Markku Ounaskari.

Album sound samples available on request.

PEPERONCINO JAZZ FESTIVAL

Trygve Seim - saxophones
Mats Eilertsen – doublebass
Kristjan Randalu - piano
Markku Ounaskari - drums

With its overt lyricism, strong themes and a sense of perpetual melodic invention, Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seim’s new album quickly identifies itself as a classic-in-the-making. Themes of dedication run through Seim’s Helsinki Songs album, a set of tunes composed – for the most part – in the Finnish capital, and radiating tributes in many directions. Here are songs referencing Igor Stravinsky and Jimmy Webb, pieces dedicated to each of Seim’s gifted bandmates, and tunes that tip the hat, obliquely, to Ornette Coleman and Bill Evans. The quartet plays superbly throughout, with outstanding solos from leader Seim and pianist Kristjan Randalu. Helsinki Songs was recorded in Oslo’s Rainbow Studio in January 2018 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Seim has worked with both small and big ensembles and is a musician constantly finding new ways of expressing himself. He has put his mark on recent Norwegian jazz history via such groups as Airamero , Oslo 1300, and The Source and Trygve Seim Ensemble with releases on ECM. He has also studied Egyptian music and worked in bands led by Manu Katché, Iro Haarla , Jacob Young and Sinikka Langeland.