Verneri Pohjola

Mika Kallio has collaborated with most major jazz musicians in Finland. Some of the players he has worked and/or recorded with are Mikko Innanen, Kari Ikonen, Pauli Lyytinen, Raoul Björkenheim, Otto Donner,, Anssi Nykänen, Jarmo Savolainen, Jukka Perko, Teemu Viinikainen, Manuel Dunkel, Verneri Pohjola, Jukka Gustavson, Marzi Nyman, Eero Koivistoinen, Pekka Pohjola and many others

Fusion jazz is a genre I would normally not expect to come from arctic Finland. Guitarist Tuppu Orrenmaa must have decided to hit it really big on his third album with his Orrenmaa Band, hiring a genuine who-is-who of the international jazz scene. All drums on Make My Day were played by the legendary Billy Cobham, who should be known even to novices for his collaborations with artists like Miles Davis and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The horns section of Tower Of Power, another American collective of artists with cult status, can be heard on six songs. This is also the first time they can be heard together with Billy Cobham on a record.

Occupy the World features the legendary composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith together with TUMO, a new improvising orchestra that is assembled specifically for each project, in its first appearance. The 22-piece orchestra performs five extended compositions by Smith, including "Occupy The World For Life, Liberty and Justice", his most extensive recorded composition to date, that was originally inspired by the Occupy movement. The four other compositions included on this double-CD were also recorded here for the first time.

After a much celebrated appearance by Adam Baldych at the 2011 Berlin Jazzfest, critic Ulrich Olshausen raved in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper: "He has, without doubt, the greatest technique of any jazz violinist alive today. We can expect everything of him". High praise for a musician of just 26 years of age, and at the same time only fitting for a man who has been considered a prodigy in his native Poland for many years already. He discovered the violin at the age of 11, and jazz at 13; the music gave him the freedom of expression he was looking for, and at 16 he started his international career. After completing his jazz studies at the Katowice Academy with distinction, he was awarded a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston.