Alina Bzhezhinska and Tony Kofi fire-up Finland’s Tampere Jazz Happening

The notes from her instrument sound crystal clear. Alina Bzhezhinska and her five-piece HipHarp Collective, with the excellent saxophonist Tony Kofi, captivated the audience in Tampere from the very first note. On the one hand, the harpist pays homage to her two idols on the jazz harp, Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, but on the other hand she introduces her own sound language and excitingly expands the scope of what is possible with a harp in jazz improvisation. For example in her interactions with Tony Kofi's saxophone, the large, bulky harp is a present, thrillingly free-spirited and very creative voice in the hands of the London-based, Ukrainian-born musician.

Another powerful voice on the saxophone is that of Fabian Dudek, who wowed the audience in the second part of a German night at the Tampere Jazz Happening with the Dudek-Hauptmann-Goller-Berger quartet, even though drummer Leif Berger had to be replaced at short notice due to illness. Singer Rebekka Salomea's band Salomea, in which Berger also plays drums, had to cancel the event altogether. Every year, the festival puts the spotlight on a guest country for one evening, this time it was Germany. And while singer and musician Kira Hummen and her trio found it hard to shake off the boredom factor, this newly formed quartet around Fabian Dudek proved to be a highly energetic, always rousing unit that uses compositional concepts as a starting point for exciting free improvisation.

Julia Hülsmann Quartet - Photo by Maarit Kytöharju

And there were even more bands with German participation to be heard in this year. The exciting quartet KUU!, for example, who simply remove genre boundaries with their wild jazz-punk-rock attitude. Or the enchanting pianist Julia Hülsmann and her quartet. Or, to round things off, trombonist Janning Trumann with his trio project X Nosacrum and a rather freely improvised set of trombone, drums and electronics.  

With the Nigerian-born Camilla George, who has lived in London for a long time, and the American Marcus Strickland, the penultimate of the festival's four days featured two saxophonists, each with their own bands, one right after the other. George has long been looking for musical connections to her Nigerian roots, but as a young woman in England she also grew up with hip hop. Her music in Tampere with rapper Sanity has a modern street sound, but also a nod to Africa. It's all pleasing and very beautiful, but unfortunately only at the end of the set with more bite. Marcus Strickland's band Twi-Life, often driven by a Hammond organ, sounded much more spiritual and gripping.

South African flair was exuded by pianist Nduduzo Makhathini and his trio. The South African pianist and singer is much more than just a musician, but his far too long philosophical speech in the middle of his hour-long set was not only a distraction from the beautiful, sometimes hymn-like, soulful music, but was also difficult to understand in terms of content. The Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra showed what you can pack into your music without big words. The band of the Swedish trumpeter with Croatian roots blends so many styles so coherently into a very entertaining mixture that it is simply a pleasure to experience this band live.

Incidentally, saxophonist Linda Fredriksson received the prestigious Yrjö Award from the Finnish Jazz Association in Tampere this year. And numerous other Finnish musicians such as trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, saxophonist Jimi Tenor and bands like Laurell & Sun Dog made this year's Tampere Jazz Happening just that - a real event.