Juhani Aaltonen
The Sky Is Ruby
Raoul Björkenheim, who is one of the most adventurous guitarists on the contemporary scene, initially progressed from B.B. King to Frank Zappa and from John McLaughlin to John Coltrane in his search of a sound of his own. With his own groups, such as Krakatau, Björkenheim accomplished that goal more than two decades ago and has successfully brought this unique sound to his own compositions as well. For The Sky Is Ruby, Björkenheim penned eight inspired original compositions that make good use of…
Reflections
Reflections features three giants of improvised music in an open dialogue built on both their shared influences and their different backgrounds: Juhani Aaltonen on tenor saxophone and flute, Reggie Workman on bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. The album can be seen as a companion to Strings Revisited, which featured the trio together with The Avanti! Chamber Orchestra conducted by Henrik Otto Donner. On Reflections, the music is improvised within only a loose compositional framework. Composed the…
Strings Revisited
Strings Revisited revives and revamps the sound of Strings, a now-classic recording of Henrik Otto Donner´s compositions by tenor saxophonist/flautist Juhani Aaltonen together with a jazz group and strings that was originally released in 1976 and has become one of the cornerstones of modern Finnish jazz. Strings Revisited was born from the idea of building on the music of the original album in order to create new music. Three compositions from it were recorded as new contemporary arrangements an…
Strings
Strings is one of the best known and best loved Finnish jazz albums from the 70s, but annoyingly difficult to find on vinyl. The Svart reissue presents the album mastered for vinyl from the original tapes and comes with new liner notes. From 1970 until 1974 Otto Donner, one of the founders of Love Records, worked as the director of the entertainment section of the Finnish Broadcasting Company. The idea for Strings came up during that time when Juhani Aaltonen and Donner ran into each other at Yl…
Jazz Liisa 17
In January 1973 an impromptu supergroup took over the airwaves on the Jazz Liisa series. Saxophonist Juhani Aaltonen, pianist Esa Helasvuo, join bassist Teppo Hauta-Aho and drummer Edward Vesala in a special one-of-a-kind show of contemporary, revolutionary jazz.
Etiquette
Black vinyl, edition of 300. Svart Records presents the first vinyl reissue of the first solo album by Juhani Aaltonen, a rarity since its original release in 1974 on Love Records. Saxophonist and flautist Juhani “Junnu” Aaltonen is a living legend among Finnish jazz musicians, having also performed stints with rock groups such as Tasavallan Presidentti. Encouraged by the ubiquitous Edward Vesala, with whom Aaltonen recorded several albums over the years, he ended up in the recording studio as …