Timo.matchplan Fussball

The dynamic duo of tenor saxophonist Timo Lassy and drummer Teppo Mäkynen return with a double LP of live recordings captured in 2019 and 2020. The We Jazz Records release "Live Recordings 2019-2020" follows the duo's 2019 LP which was shortlisted for "Jazz Album Of the Year" at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards. While the studio album versions were studies in improvisational brevity, the live album lets the long-time collaborators really let loose and build memorable sonic narratives around the compositions. The album is produced and edited by Teppo Mäkynen, also known as a sought-after producer with the knack for looking at the big picture.

The Missa Popularis, rock music in church, raised eyebrows in Finnish church-music circles in the late-1960s: “We are returning to a dark jungle in which pop freaks get entranced like shamans at their own voices and noise.” (Erkki Ranta, letter to the editor in Kotimaa,1969) “Defending the use of light popular music in Christian, even revivalist Christian circles, just makes me sad.” (Juha Väliaho- Uusi tie 1969) But the experts praised the quality of the music: “Timo Ruottinen’s setting of the Mass undoubtedly serves its purpose extremely well and it is, of its kind, a high-quality work. […] At first hearing, I’d say that the young composer has an extremely rich melodic seam and a well-developed ability to create unbroken lines in setting such a difficult text to music. The danger of monotony was brilliantly avoided by different rhythmic contrasts that, together with strong dynamic variations, brought the music alive and made it interesting.

The title of “The Decalogue” has a touch of the grandiose: it means “The Ten Commandments.” Yet this score, composed by Sufjan Stevens for a dance work choreographed by Justin Peck that premiered with the New York City Ballet in May of 2017, is quiet and experimental. Stevens’s piano score, as played and recorded by Timo Andres, sounds like etudes in the Romantic-modernist tradition, as if prompted by Debussy. With “The Decalogue,” releasing digitally and on deluxe edition vinyl on October 18, 2019 and standard edition and CD on December 6, 2019, Sufjan is making—gently, without ostentation—new departures.

J.S. Bach's sonatas for solo violin, part of a long tradition of virtuoso works for the instrument, seem unsuited to transcription. But a guitar comes closer than perhaps any other instrument: it embodies a tension – not the same tension as with a solo violin but a tension nonetheless – between melodic material and polyphony. In the hands of Finnish guitarist Timo Korhonen they produce an unusual effect.

Nonesuch releases composer/pianist Timo Andres’ new album, The Blind Banister, on March 22, 2024. The album comprises three works by Andres: the composer’s third piano concerto, The Blind Banister, with Andres as soloist, and Upstate Obscura for chamber orchestra and cello, with soloist Inbal Segev—both of which feature Metropolis Ensemble and conductor Andrew Cyr—and the solo piano piece Colorful History, also performed by the composer.