Saturday, June 28, 2008
Quintessence: Great fusion of Jazz, Soul and Funk from Finland
This is a lovely band to come in contact with during an early Summer heat spell. My first contact was with their albums Talk Less Listen Moreand 5am.
I first heard them and thought of Floetry, Jill Scott, maybe an international jazz funk band like Incognito from seemingly all of Europe and probably the rest of the world or United Futures Organization and its spin offs from Japan. But Finland? Who would have thunk?
The albums have a certain sense of multi-layered sonic funhouse to them. The live clips embedded at the end of this post do justice to a good band, but one a a bit out of place, it seems, to perform as an act in what is likely a straight-ahead jazz festival but there are some lovely twists and turns, espcially on the second clip. I think the three clips are worth the time, and the finale at the end of two and duration of three, singer Emma Salokoski's take on Luis Bonfa's classy samba Felicidade from the Black Orpheus sound track is quit e a pleasure. Here we have Helsinki does Rio, a big reach across the world, indeed. Apparently, Quintessence is currently inactive or broke up and Saloski is doing a combination of what is probably finish torch jazz-pop spiced with a lot more Brazilian/latin tunes. She has a website promoting her work, but its written in Finish, and its best value to me are some very attractive images of this singer.
For us English readers, there is a spritely press release about the band from the record company with some more nice factoids about these musicians. Be sure to scroll down for the band pictures and discography. Both Talk Less Listen Moreand 5amare at emusic and are definitely worth checking out if you are a subscriber.
I have sometimes devoted entries on the buffet to Internet discoveries like Quintessence. There is a great deal of pleasure in stumbling across something that immediately appeals to you, and then to triangulate with search engine, video site, and old standby links to have an experience that fundamentally can be in a way considered somewhat like spending an afternoon with them.
Here is a murky looking music video of Delirious. The tune has a great hook, but I find the drum track a bit distracting.
Sometimes the drumming gets to be a bit much in the aforementioned three part air check capture (probably) of the group from the Novusakdat jazz festival. but the talent and groove of these Finlandians (that or Finns, Finecians, what term is right?) comes across well enough.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:46 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment