Encore

By Ken Waxman

December 12 has shaped up to a red-letter day in Finnish Jazz since that’s when Juhani Aaltonen, one of the country major improvisers, celebrates his 90^th birthday. Anything but retired the tenor saxophonist and flutist was feted during a two-hour gala concert in Helsinki’s Savoy Theatre, alongside associates from his almost 70 year professional career which has encompassed big band and small group work and in every variety of modern jazz from studio and mainstream sessions, a dip into fusion and longer affiliation with free form improvisation.

“In music you have to maintain the feeling of ‘first love’, says Aaltonen, who lives in Vantaa, a small city about 10 kilometre from Helsinki. “Every style of music has its own atmosphere. You have to be able to sense that. You have to break through the shield that isolates you from the audience with communication that’s open and free.”

In fact communication has been a watch word for the saxophonist every since he was first exposed to American jazz t in his village of Inkeroinen, which later was absorbed into the city of Kouvola, in the country’s southeast interior. Films like Young Man with  Horn and The Glenn Miller story made a lasting impression on him and drawn to the films’ improvisational side he purchased a tenor saxophone and taught himself to play.  However the tough times in post World War Two Finland led him to take non-musical jobs in Sweden and it wasn’t until he returned home in the late 1950s that he began playing seriously.

That intensified after 1961 when he moved to Helsinki to study flute at the Jean Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. That lasted only a year, and while in the 1970s a Herb Pomeroy master class in Finland allowed him to spend one semester at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, as well a personal situation forced him to leave the American school after one semester.

By then though he felt he already had worked out a musical style. “I remember that my teacher at Berklee asked me to play something and that his comment was simply: ‘that’s it!’.”Aaltonen had already established himself on the Finnish capital’s music scene by then, and that was another reason for his initial foreshortened tenure at the Sibelius Academy. “I left because I felt that I did not get the things I needed from that place,” he recalls.

What he did get from then on was to integrate himself into the many forms of music then flourishing in his country. “For me it was natural to adapt to different musical settings. If you want to make a living in Finland playing music you have to be all-round. It’s very hard if you specialize too much.” In fact some commentators report that Aaltonen may have taken part in more recordings than any other Finnish musician at that time. “Going to a studio gig and being asked to play the melody of a French waltz, for instance, you have to be able to grasp what’s needed to convey a feeling of that particular style of music.” he notes. Furthermore he explains: “Being asked to play different styles, was a huge learning experience for me.” He even spent 1969-1970 as part of  Tasavallan Presidentti, then the country’s most prominent jazz-rock band. “Tasavallan Presidentti wanted an improvising musician in the band,” he avers. “I never tried to be a progressive rock musician. Again I simply adapted to the environment.”

He also doesn’t regret having the advanced musical background that many other players possess. “The lack of formal training forced me to find my own way of solving musical problems. This path has turned out to be beneficial for me. I think of music in a visual way. And the words of songs are very important. For instance, when I play ‘Nature Boy’ then the words guide how I phrase, what intervals, what sound I create. The words direct me towards a deeper understanding of what can be said through music.”

Tenor saxophone avatars such as Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and even Archie Shepp and Ben Webster were more important to his evolution as a player. Seeing John Coltrane in concert was also a huge influence he admits. “Coltrane made me realize that there should be a message in the playing,” he states.

Another saxophonist who impressed Aaltonen with his energy was German Peter Brötzmann, with whom he toured in that late 1970s. That resulted from the saxophonist’s affiliation with drummer Edward Vesala (1945-1999), who in many ways was Finland’s best-known Free Jazz player. “I met Vesala in a jam-session in 1967,” Aaltonen remembers “ And we had a deep collaboration between 1967 and 1985.” Recorded souvenirs of those years include Prana – Live At Groovy (1981) with Reggie Workman and Springbird (1979) with other Finnish players like Tervakoski-based keyboardist Iro Haarla with whom he has reconnected in recent years.

“Working with Juhani is very inspiring. I love his soulful tenor saxophone sound and the way he interprets my melodies,” she notes “ I even composed ‘Agape Love’, a song for him which means in Christian life God’s unselfish love. Juhani is a humble person and his strong spiritual attitude towards life in heard in his interpretations and gives power to other musicians in the band”

Besides Vesala, at that time Aaltonen was working with group  like the local New Musical Orchestra which played mainstream jazz arrangements as well as with other Nordic players such as being a part of Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen’s quartet on discs such as Shimri (1977) and Green Shading Into Blue (1978).

His affiliations with all of these players came to a halt in 1986, though when Aaltonen had what he describes as “a spiritual awakening”. From that time until the early 2000s he concentrated solely on church music, though he insists “I continued improvising. I never stopped doing that even though I didn’t play jazz.”

Still when bassist Ulf Krokfors, another Tervakoski resident, contacted him to play in a trio with him and drummer Tom Nekljudow, a rehearsal convinced Aaltonen to return to playing jazz mainly on sessions for the Tum label, with nine as leader. “You can call it destiny” opines Krokfors. “Juhani himself had come to the place where he wanted to kind of continue where he left off. In that sense Tom and I asking him to form a trio came in the right moment. There was not really any persuasion going on.”

The first CD made by that trio in 2001 was called Mother Tongue. “That’s what it’s all about: talking the same musical language, “ the bassist adds. “We see music-making the same way so we have always had the same vision of the music. Juhani has influenced me in so many ways, not only musically but also spiritually. He has become my mentor.”

Besides that trio, during this century Aaltonen has expanded his playing partners to numerous other Finnish musicians, some of whom like pianist Heikki Sarmanto and bassist Teppo Hauta-aho are his contemporaries, but many of whom decades younger than him, such his association guesting with alto saxophonist Mikko Innanen’s Plop trio.,

What is it like playing with younger musicians? “Since I’m 90 everyone else is younger than me,” he jokes. “Playing with younger people keeps me in motion musically. And again there is the adaptability thing. I listen to what Mikko Innanen plays, for instance, and try to find my own way in his music.”

Plop, Haarla, Krokfors and others  with whom he has played over the years participated in the Savoy concert. Decisively enough, the mature Aaltonen also says he’s more confident in his playing than  ever before. “I used to play with a knife to my throat, he admits. “But I don’t feel like that anymore. Communication has to be open and free, you can’t hide behind your instrument.”