suomeksiA tribute to old time jazz
(MBA 003), 1999
For listeners
My father Pentti "Pena" Lehtonen was a jazz fan, a deeply devoted drummer, and my mother Raija-Liisa Tuhka enjoyed her Sunday breakfast coffee listening to "Haikeasti svengaten" (sadly swinging). The many stories and Jukka Haavisto's jazz anthology, which I eagerly studied, evoke in me an immense interest in the music of my parents. I mentioned this interest to Jukka, and he introduced me to fellow musicians of my late father. It was an incredible experience to sit at the same table with all those personalities. In no time I was on their team, and soon I heard unbelievable stories about developments in Finnish jazz and something else as well. Most of these veterans had been eager to maintain their touch with jazz and continued to play gigs with different bands. I suspect that some of them had even been practicing!
I told them about my wish to produce a jazz document about veterans and now these stars of the fifties (40 of them) have returned to their jazz roots and recorded a disc of history.
The dance orchestras of Helsinki in the 1950's included such great names as Erik Lindström, Olli Häme, Ronnie Kranck, Jorma Weneskoski, Eljas Wieliczko, Onni Gideon, Jaakko Salo, Raimo Virtanen, Leo Lindblom, Ossi Runne, Olle Lindström, Heikki Malmberg, Göran Ödner, Erkki Melakoski, Rolf Kronqvist... They all played ball room music of all sorts, but their hearts were really beating only for jazz. Those musicians we will hear have descended from these same great bands!
A 70 year old tradition has helped in creating this record. Helsinki's jazz musicians have been meeting and jamming for most of this century. The meetings started as early as the s/s Andania's stay in Helsinki in 1926, when musicians listened to the ship's band in Opris restaurant. After the war the meeting place was the legendary Columbia at Aleksi, later the jamming-place Mäyränkolo. After a lengthy pause the meetings got a new breath of life when Olle Lindström's daughter Karin started a café called KAFFILA in the old Citypassage. Frega Jaakkola called the friends together, and so on Wednesdays the tiny room filled up with players in their seventies and gigantic bursts of laughter. The company was soon called the "KAFFILA GANG", and this name remained when they moved - after Karin closed KAFFILA - to Kappeli, and later to the Café Ursula at Espa.
I want to express my warm thanks to the 40 great musicians. Special thanks go to Jukka who initiated the project as well as to Erik Lindström, Raimo Virtanen, Kaarlo Kaartinen and Jorma Lamppu for support and advice. Thanks to ESEK for financial support Martin Brushane for excellent studio work and to Seija Luokkamäki for visual design.
My daddy would say "hyvä meininki!". I dedicate this CD to him.
Jyri Lehtonen
Half the profit of this CD will go to Kuusikoti, to benefit the war veterans. Kuusikoti is one of the several beneficiaries of the Helsinki/ Floorankenttä Lions Club. With the turn of the Millennium, our Club wishes to honor the Kuusikoti veterans who contributed to the independence of our country. We thank them for our future.
Jaakko Koskinen LC HELSINKI/ Floorankenttä
(translation: Jorma Lamppu and Sirkku & John Grierson)
A WAY OF LIFE
Why is it that jazz musicians have a strong sense of community when jazz is more individualistic than any other ensemble playing? What brings jazz musicians together year after year - even without their instruments?
In established bands a deep sense of affinity and friendship is unavoidable. It is impossible to imagine devoted playing from a combo whose members were not friends. A few decades ago it was more a rule than an exception that a band performed with the same members year after year. The bandleaders of that time were repelled by the counterproductive circulation which started when a well known band snatched a new player from a rival orchestra - which, of course, recovered its loss by persuading a star from a neighboring combo to replace the loss. That was the recycling system of those times.
The orchestra members used to meet within family circles, bowl in a team and have Christmas time parties together. Their conversations included sport, study, girls, short films in Kit Cat and the names of pals on the union's list of dismissed members, but above all jazz.
Our jazz musicians were initially rather Americanized, because the beloved music has it's roots there. The manner of speaking and dressing and other interests developed from this into semiotic symbols binding the cats together. It might be said that jazz shaped those musicians universally, if not uniformly, regardless of their political views. The Kaffila Gang still shows such togetherness and a way of life, even though imitating the American style has ceased with time.
There is usually no dilemma about the repertoire when jamming a gig. The standards of ball room music and jazz still prevail well in possession. The language of jazz is the Esperanto of music, hundreds of melodies belong to a mutual repertoire. Every soul growls with hunger for swing, and this despite an average age approaching 70. Jukka Haavisto (translation: Jorma Lamppu and Sirkku & John Grierson)