Jazz has been part of the multi-genre Flow Festival’s DNA since it was launched in 2004, featuring memorable shows by the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Brandee Younger, Kamasi Washington and Roy Ayers.
The festival and the groovy Five Corners Quintet – both splicing retro and future sounds – were started around the same time by Tuomas Kallio, who remains at the festival’s helm. The band recorded with Mark Murphy and backed him at the second Flow before its members went off to active solo careers. Three of them played at this, the 20th Flow, where most of the jazz offerings were domestic – as were many of the festival’s other acts.
One reason for that is that Western artists have rightly been boycotting Russia since 2022. That makes it less financially viable to perform in Finland, which used to be a stop along the way.
Still, the most scintillating jazz-adjacent shows were by artists from far-flung Brazil and Pakistan: Marcos Valle and Arooj Aftab, both on the outdoor Balloon 360° stage.
The best party of the weekend was led by bossa-nova legend Valle, who turns 81 and releases a new album next month. With the sun out after a damp start to the festival, Valle was in energetic form on the Fender Rhodes and other keyboards, with empathetic vocal support from his wife, Patrícia Alví.
Backed by a killer band, they came across as ageless and energetic, cheerfully interacting with people around the small, circular stage, some sporting yellow-green jerseys and Brazilian flags. To younger fans, Valle is familiar through his 2020 album on LA’s Jazz is Dead label as well as samples and reworkings of his hits by the likes of Kanye West, Jay Z and Madlib.
He gleefully served up classics like Samba de Verão (Summer Samba), released 60 years ago, the funk juggernaut Estrelar, starring bassist Jefferson Lescowich, and Crickets Sing For Anamaria, written for and originally performed with his first wife and now amiably by Alví.
Powering the irresistible beach boogie and jazz-funk rhythms was mighty drummer Renato Massa, now with Azymuth, who named themselves after a Valle tune and join him on his next album. Valle was going on to play London’s Jazz Café, 17-18 August.
Earlier on the round stage, Arooj Aftab delivered a more introspective, downbeat set with more subtle humour. While she draws on South Asian ghazals and qawwalis, the Grammy winner’s jazz links include a youthful obsession with Billie Holiday and last year’s Love In Exile with pianist Vijay Iyer, who aptly described her voice as “gliding like a dark moon”. Indeed, her vocals were deep, rich and burgundy like the wine glass she refilled during the set from a bottle perched on an amp.
That clearly put her – and the audience – in the mood for her tune Whiskey, her world-weary vocals and lyrics (“I’m drunk and you’re insane/Tell me how we will get home”) bringing to mind Mary Coughlan’s Whiskey Didn’t Kill the Pain.
Aftab was delicately underpinned by Australian drummer Engin Gunaydin, Greek double bassist Petros Klampanis, who added scat vocals, and flamenco-tinged acoustic guitar solos from Gyan Riley, who improvised at the festival a few years ago with his father, Terry Riley.
Aftab’s low-key, incandescent stage presence and vocals echoed a Balloon show a year earlier by Meshell Ndegeocello. Fitting, then, that the American vocalist and bassist will be featured in this autumn’s Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht – curated by Aftab.
Among the Finnish jazz roster, vocalist Selma Savolainen delivered the most startling set, with dramatic original material that could be Nordic kin to Aftab’s and Ndegeocello’s cross-genre soul-searching.
In Savolainen’s case, her uncompromising, arty contemporary jazz is fused with the singer-songwriter tradition. There’s an occasional tinge of Suzanne Vega in her phrasing, though Savolainen has much more range and expression, and of Alanis Morissette in her harsher, angrier moments. She also cites influences from Kurt Weill to grunge rock, reflecting compositions that can be knotty and intense.
Savolainen’s distinctive vocals are an acquired taste, ranging from conversational to anguished near-screaming, with effortless swoops and worldly wisdom that belie her relative youth, and natural English enunciation.
Her top-flight band featured keyboardist Toomas Keski-Säntti with his brooding Ray Manzarek-like organ sound, and clarinettist Max Zenger, who duetted evocatively with Tomi Nikku on flugelhorn and muted trumpet. Holding it together were bassist Eero Tikkanen of Mopo and drummer Okko Saastamoinen of OK:KO.
Together they kept a full audience rapt through a challenging set despite intermittent rain, though a new song that closed the set went on too long for my taste.
Savolainen is a name to watch, having won major Finnish jazz awards since her solo debut last year. She’s also earned accolades with the group Signe, featuring four vocalists and bassist Kaisa Mäensivu. Savolainen seems to be extending the bold exploration of her late father, the pianist Jarmo Savolainen. He was known for his work with Pekka Pohjola, whose son Verneri played the same stage that weekend, and local sax legend Eero Koivistoinen, who was among those listening appreciatively.
Koivistoinen also checked out two of members of 5 Corners Quintet, a group he guested with two decades ago. Together and separately, saxophonist Timo Lassy and trumpeter Jukka Eskola have played everything from Blue Note-style groove jazz to bossa and electronic experimentation. For this year’s Nordic Stew, they got back to basics, recording in New Orleans with the likes of Delfeayo Marsalis, Herlin Riley and Kirk Joseph, a set that wraps old-timey Crescent City heritage with Nordic and Afrobeat influences.
The two leaders duelled and duetted in razor-sharp styles familiar to Helsinki audiences, backed by younger local players who had big shoes to fill but carried it off respectably.
Pianist Juho Valjakka was the band’s secret weapon, playing solos that were tasty though far from the New Orleans tradition, over ferocious, crowd-pleasing drumming from Severi Sorjonen of Iiro Rantala’s band.
Kenneth Ojutkangas added plump Dirty Dozen Brass Band-style basslines on tuba, with help from bassist Antti Ahoniemi. The latter also played Flow’s main stage, backing Congolese-Finnish Afrotrap star Ege Zulu.
On similar double duty was former 5 Corners drummer Teppo Mäkynen, who played the big stage with Liberian-born rapper and singer Jesse Markin, and at the 360° with his own band, the Stance Brothers.
Their set of mellow, loungey acid jazz delved into the 70s funk sound of George Duke and War, centring on Mikko Antila’s vibes. Electronic keyboards and bird calls took us into Cal Tjader/Les Baxter exotica territory. While Mäkynen is one of Helsinki’s most entertaining drummers, the tunes were pleasant but forgettable.
That was also mostly true of a set by multi-instrumentalist Jimi Tenor and electronic pioneer Jori Hulkkonen. His massive, bone-juddering beats pleased the big-tent crowd, but sometime overwhelmed Tenor’s wispy vocals and flute solos, though his sax playing teamed up more effectively with the techno and house rhythms.
Back at the 360° stage, there was more mainstream post-bop jazz from trumpeter Verneri Pohjola,with restrained electronic keyboards from Tuomo Prättälä, who co-produced last year’s masterful Monkey Mind album. Prättälä’s sometimes spacey synth was paired tastefully with Kit Downes’ acoustic piano. So were the exquisite bass work of Jasper Høiby and drumming of Olavi Louhivuori. Guest saxophonist Linda Fredriksson joined for the two most exciting, moving pieces of the set.
Pohjola’s range and strength – and vulnerability – as a composer and soloist have grown ever since he, Prättälä and Louhivuori debuted with Ilmiliekki Quartet in 2002. Last year, Pohjola triumphed with the premiere of a trumpet concerto written for him by acclaimed composer Kaija Saariaho, who died two months earlier. At Flow, Saariaho was commemorated with performances of her electro-acoustic works by the NYKY Ensemble in the experimental Other Sound venue.
That was also the setting for a midnight set by Lau Nau (Laura Naukkarinen), who assured the audience she didn’t mind if they fell asleep.
Backed with dazzling live visuals by Pauliina Mäkelä, Naukkarinen sang softly, strummed an effect-laden electric guitar, created tantalising sounds by tapping, splashing and bowing a miked glass bowl of water, and rubbed together pebbles like a super-slowed, one-person Art Ensemble of Chicago – all over warm waves of modular synth. While the music was mostly peaceful, ambient improv, there was enough variation to keep everyone awake, or perhaps vividly dreaming a late summer night’s dream.
Flow Festival, Helsinki, Finland, 8-11 August 2024
