Iro Legaki

Iro Haarla may not be particularly well-known, but the Finnish pianist/harpist's influence has been felt by anyone familiar with the work of her late husband, drummer Edward Vesala. According to saxophonist Trygve Seim—who not only played with Vesala towards the end of his life, but is also part of Haarla's quintet on her ECM debut, Northbound—Haarla was an uncredited co-composer on many of Vesala's compositions.

Heart of a Bird is an intimate collaboration between two kindred spirits, pianist/harpist Iro Haarla and bassist Ulf Krokfors. The music represents free improvisation within a compositional framework.

This duet was Edward Vesala's idea. Both musicians were among his closest collaborators, pianist/harpist Iro Haarla (also his wife) for over 20 years, saxophonist Pepa Päivinen since 1984. This album, the duo's first, was recorded in December 2000, a year after the composer's untimely death. Yarra is an Australian aboriginal word meaning flowing, as in: time passes by, wounds heal, whatever happens water keeps on flowing. Half of the ten pieces included here are taken from Vesala's songbook. "Invisible Storm" constitutes a highlight, the composition moving away from jazz (even free jazz) to fall somewhere between this idiom and contemporary classical without the verbiage of Third Stream.

Ante Lucem, a powerful suite for jazz quintet and symphony orchestra by Finnish pianist/harpist/composer Iro Haarla, was premiered at the Umeå Jazz Festival in October 2012. It was recorded at the Concert Hall of NorrlandsOperan in Umeå, and the album is drawn both from the premiere concert and from sessions on the following days. Ante Lucem is comprised of four separate yet closely linked pieces which reflect in different ways, the composer says, upon the "struggle between darkness and light".