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If you’ve got the latest album’s on ACT like Gwilym Simcock Good Days at Schloss Elmau and the Vijay Iyer trio of Iyer,h Prasanna & Nitin Mitta on Tirth but you don’t want to mss out on this one by Verneri Pohjola.

And if you know your Finnish jazz, you’ll know that Verneri writes and performs with several renowned groups in the fields of jazz, soul and rock including the Ilmiliekki Quartet, the indie/art rock band Silvio (in which he plays Rhodes-piano and drums) but most notably Pohjola’s trumpet to the classic Quintessence album Talk Less Listen More as well as Q-Continuum and Warp! to name just a few.

Not only that, he’s got a bit of a head start with his family connections as he’s the son Finish bass player legend Pekka (who appears twice on the album but sadly died shortly after this album was recorded) whilst Verneri’s younger brother Ilmari also features on trombone.

Now we all know Finland has a fine tradition in the jazz field from the adventurous Jazzpuu to the recent jazz explosion of Ricky-Tick Records along with leading lights such as Teddy ‘Universal Four’ Rok, Jukka Eskola, Jimi Tenor, Jouni ‘Dharma One’ Helminen and the like.

Verneri himself has quite a few admirers as he has won numerous awards for his trumpet playing and when Nils Landgren (he of the Funk Unit) had the chance, he invited Pohjola to the Berlin Jazz Festival last year and made sure that Siggi Loch (ACT’s boss) got him to add him to the label’s growing wealth of young (but first Fin!) talent.

Aurora, which translates as the Roman for “Goddess of the dawn”, that’s also the name of the opening track, does evoke the sunrise over the Mediterranean or the mournful horn of a ship on the Nile surrounded by fog (Ed. do they have fog on the Nile?) It is said that Pohjola favours “deeper tones and a meditative, airy sound” and the album is certainly deep and atmospheric; if Matthew Halsall was Nordic, you get the idea.

But this is certainly not a one man show on the album as he’s joined by a host of countryman and whilst the liner notes say they the tracks switch from the improvisation to the strictly written, occasionally the two elements coincide like at the end of the ‘Akvavit’ where the horn is full flow, is joined by the strings whilst the free style percussion continues from earlier on. There’s no less than 15 musicians on this album and ‘For Three’ starts off like a tight band track and it just grows into it’s near 12 minutes duration to become my current favourite track ever; the strings and piano (Aki Rissannen) are fantastic.

All compositions by Verneri except Concierto De Aranjuez Amour (Joauin Rodrigo) which the sharp eyed amongst you will recall was pat of Davis’ classic 1960 album Sketches Of Spain (you can see why Pohjola got the strings on here as Davis’ album was a full-on Gil Evans affair; and this is a very good version also. And ‘Boxer Affair’ gets into Miles hero mode and whilst this is a sort of a Birth Of The Cool (as an aside, I need to get Jeremy Taylor’s cover version) but it’s very Finnish,’ Askisto’ is music box melancholy minimal classical Steve Reichist.

‘Spirit of S’ and ‘Colossus’ are fantastically Miles a la neu-birth and love the flute on ‘Colossus’ by Juhani Asltonen.

It’ll be interesting to see if he’ll follow his idol on a Filles De Kilimanjaro, On The Corner or Tutu tip but there’s a equal chance the he may go in another direction as the last track, ‘At the End Of The Album’ is like some remnant of Italian prog-jazz which is a little bit strange but overall, a very interesting album.

There’s more Finnish talent promised later in the year on ACT, such as pianist Iiro Rantala (who has played with the Trio Töykeät) so even more reason to keep your eye on ACT this year.

Hectic Mix Recommendations: ‘For Three’ might be a long one but it’s definitely getting in the May Jazz Chronicles podcast but get the album as you’ll want the whole album.

Reviewed: Verneri Pohjola - Aurora (ACT) Cat. No. ACT 9027-2 Release date: 31st January 2011 Notes: Cover art: Rolf Rose (detail)
Tracklisting:
1. Akvavit (6:10)
2. For Three (11:43)
3. Askisto (6:03)
4. Boxer Diesel (8:30)
5. Spirit Of S (8:47)
6. Colossus (9:29)
7. Concierto De Aranjuez Amour (6:39)
8. At The End Of This Album (5:12)

Links:
www.myspace.com/verneripohjolaactmusic.com
triotoykeat.com
www.vijay-iyer.com
milesdavisonline.com