Pori jazz festival

Tuesday night at around eleven o’clock at night and I just cannot resist; believe it or not I’m dancing to …"Staying Alive"!!! Not the original by the Bee Gees but a fantastic jazz version of the known disco song by a Latvian jazz band. The place is the Klubi Garden at the Pori Jazz Festival.

For a long time before I moved to Finland every time I asked anything about Finland the answer was mostly connected with Formula 1 and I hate the damn sport if you could ever call it sport. However, nobody, literally nobody, ever told me anything about Finnish jazz. Not that I didn’t know about Scandinavian jazz, since my record collection already included a couple records from the Norwegian Jan Garbarek and Swedes Jan Johansson and Nils Landgren, but as for Finns… none!

The names Antti Sarpila, Jukka Eskola and Eero Koivistoinen meant nothing to me and most likely they mean nothing to you if you live outside Finland and I’m really sorry because if you like jazz because there is absolutely no excuse for not knowing these names. There is one good chance to live in a small Finnish town for fifteen days beside a fantastic river and feel the beat of the jazz music; ladies and gentlemen, only three days remain of this year's Pori Jazz festival and if you have missed it then you have time to organize next year's trip to jazz Finland - it starts on July 12th 2008.

For this year's festival line-up let me give you a list of names: Ziggy Marley, Steely Dan, Elvis Costello, Sly and the Family Stone, Paul Anka, Natalie Cole, Bianca Morales and Blood, Sweat and Tears. This is only the cream because the real coffee is there waiting. Phil Minton plays the trumpet alongside Roger Turner, Ted Curson and many many others. Imagine a whole jazz street beside the river in a country where, at midnight, you can still see the sun, and then at four in the morning sitting by the river with a glass of chilled white wine with eyes closed you allow Eti Carinae to move you with Latin rhythms.

When I said 'jazz street' I meant it literally because for a fortnight a street becomes the center of jazz music, with the Jazz Café, the Voodoo city café, the Klubi and the Klubi Garden and the Teatteri. The ultra music nightclubs become jazz stages and across the river on an island is the Kirjurinluoto Arena, a big stage with dance and magic! In the middle of all that are small tents with ethnic aromas to satisfy the stomach hunger after the soul with selections from Thai rice to Greek feta.

Naturally for some of these events there is an admission fee but there are so many other happenings going on for free that you feel that whatever you paid it was …too little. One evening – well, in Pori eight o’clock in the evening is not exactly evening with the sun burning your back - in the middle of the Jazz street on a stage sponsored by Nova radio and without ticket I saw one of the best progressive jazz performances I have ever seen in my life by a Swedish musician playing trumpet and playing only his compositions, but unfortunately I cannot remember his name.

Another night in a small pub not listed among the jazz clubs and events was a man from Peru with a guitar playing Tanita Tikaram in jazz style and on another night a trio (guitar/bass/violin) from Finland held another pub’s stage for three hours playing the best country I have ever heard outside the USA. On another night a Finn with an electric guitar and Bob Dylan-style harmonica took us all the way back to the '70s with his performance of artists from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin. With those last few examples, I wanted to show you that jazz street not only hosts jazz music but a great deal of good music and fantastic musicians.

I left Antti Sarpila to last because ever since I came to Finland there is no swing music for me without Antti Sarpila. I have all his records, I have seen him dozens of times in Helsinki and every time I watch a gig of his I have real fun and I mean it - I even find myself dancing and for the ones who know me that comes as a …surprise! The man is jazz all the way.

One last thing, when you get to Pori remember that all these nice people who help, all these young boys and girls who make sure that you have good time and do not feel like a foreigner for a minute, are all volunteers and they do this job just from love and joy.

If you want more information just check online at www.porijazz.fi and make sure that you are going to join me next year for the 43rd Pori Jazz Festival. At the moment I’m packing my bag because another fantastic festival starts in Finland …the Savonlinna Opera Festival!