Six years after the much-loved “Northbound” – described by All About Jazz as “lovely, articulate, river-deep music” -, a new album of emotionally-powerful ballads from outstanding composer-pianist-harpist Iro Haarla and her remarkable Finnish-Norwegian ensemble. The line-up is unchanged, likewise the commitment of the players, top-flight improvisers, every one. “Vespers” continues a tradition of music – and a scope feeling – that Iro helped establish in the Far North in her years as composer/arranger/orchestrator for Edward Vesala’s bands (and magical ECM recordings including “Lumi”, “Ode To The Death Of Jazz”, “Invisible Storm” and “Nordic Gallery”). Iro has, furthermore, composed music for the UMO Jazz Orchestra (in 2002 for Tomasz Stanko as soloist, and in 2006 for a “UMO plays Haarla” event in Helsinki and for a suite of pieces premiered in Tampere). In 2008, at the instigation of Manfred Eicher, she premiered new music for string quartet and piano and harp in Helsinki.
Vespers
Iro Haarla Quintet
- 1A Port On A Distant Shore
07:35 - 2Vesper
08:46 - 3A Window Facing South
06:16 - 4The Warm Currents Of The Sea
06:58 - 5Doxa
04:30 - 6Satoyama
04:46 - 7The Shimmer Of Falling Stars
06:34 - 8Returning Home
07:06 - 9Adieux
07:39
Mein Gott ist das schön! […] Sowie die Harfe für den Augenblick ausgereizt erscheint, schaltet sie auf Piano um, das sie aber auch wie eine horizontale Harfe spielt. All diese Transformationen sind voll emotionaler Spannung und überwältigend schön. Iro Haarla ist ein großes Album gelungen, das man gar nicht oft genug hören kann, um sich immer wieder aufs Neue zu berauschen.
Wolf Kampmann, Jazzthetik
La musicista finlandese ha il merito di costruire narrazioni suggestive, entro le quali interviene per lo più penellando brevi tratti tanto con il pianoforte, quanto con l’arpa, lasciando per il resto oneri e onori alle voci di Seim ed Eick, entrambi davvero superbi nei loro duetti a unisono incrociato, che spiccano nelle situazioni di maggiore impatto drammatico...
Pollastri, Musica Jazz
Im sehr orchestral wirkenden Ensemble relativieren Harfe, Klavier, Bass und Schlagzeug die traditionellen Jazzfunktionen und kreieren rubatoartige Samtkissen, auf welche die Bläser ihre Perlen legen.
Jazz ‚N’ More
Haarla’s piano work is, as ever – and like her quintet’s – the epitome of economy, never playing a series of chord when one beautifully ambiguous one will do, but it’s her unparalleled harp work that gives much of her music ist sweeping sense of the cinematic. Vespers is the perfect follow-up, one which caitapizes on both the strength of Haarla’s compositional conception and the stunning perfection of a group of distinct and individual voices – most, leaders in their own right – who join together to create a collective sound truly like no other.
John Kelman, All about jazz
Zusammen zelebrieren sie eine Musik, die bei allem Ätherischen und aller Elegie erfüllt ist von subtiler Free-Jazz-Energie – frei pulsierenden Rhythmen, glühenden Bläser-Ekstasen, pointilistischen Piano-Exkursionen. Frei und doch melodisch – faszinierende Musik!
Mannheimer Morgen
À la harpe ou au piano, sa musique peint de larges paysages nordiques. Vespers d’iro Haarla est du pur jazz scandinave, indifferent aux couleurs et au swing, mais très sensible à l’élaboration de melodies étendues sur des tempos très lents.
Sir Ali, So Jazz
„Rubato-Jazz“ nennt sie ihre Kunst der Langsamkeit und des Hinauszögerns. […] Iro Haarla weiß ihre hervorragende Band zu animieren, starke Stimmungen zu erzeugen. Die inneren Spannungsfäden reißen nie ab. All dies geschieht vor dem Hintergrund von Haarlas wogendem Klavierspiel und üppigen Harfenglissandi.
Karl Lippegaus, Süddeutsche Zeitung
„Vespers“ ist Old-School-ECM at ist best. […] Zusammen mitz den jungen Bläsern Mathias Eick und Trygve Seim hat sie sich einen Klang erarbeitet, der typisch skandinavisch und doch ganz ihr eigener ist. Elegich, majestätisch, von hoher Klangästhetik geprägt.
Jazzthing
Haarla’s aesthetic is quintessentially Nordic in its lyric starkness and autumnal solemnity. But her harmonic language, in its subtly discordant voicings, is distinctive, and so is her willingness to leave her emotional and spiritual ambiguities unresolved. Few jazz artists are as successful as Haarla in creating a world, a scope of feeling, and making it their own.
Thomas Conrad, Jazztime
Die neun Stücke auf „Vespers“ verzaubern durch den Kontrast zwischen dem Fluss übereinandergelegter Melodien und dem widerborstigen Puls von Bass und Schlagzeug, durch den Kontrast aus lange stehenden, im Hall verwehenden Tönen und scharfen Akzenten, aus hell und dunkel, aus hoch, tief, hart und weich. […] Dieses Konzept der über allen Maßen schwebenden Musik, das Iro Haarla bereits früher mit Arrangements für die Band ihres Mannes, des Schlagzeugers Edvard Vesala, begonne hatte, führt sie mit der eigenen Band zur Vollendung.
Werner Stiefele, Rondo
Si l’intensité et l’énergie ne sont jamais exprimées de façon extravertie, elles sont bel et bien présentes, au service d’une poésie parfois bouleversante à laquelle l’utilisation ponctuelle de la harpe confère un charme unique.
Thierry Quénum, Jazzmagazine
Iro Haarla is currently undergoing a period of utmost creativity both as composer and as bandleader, becoming one of the most central Finnish jazz musicians of the decade. Haarla’s music of mostly ballads is full of expression and it is recognizably Scandinavian while at the same time unique in its impressionism.”
from the jury statement of the Finnish Jazz Federation’s Yrjö-Award 2006.
“Compared to ‘Northbound’, all of Haarla’s previous recordings seem like preliminaries. This studio album is stunning, but not in the sense that it overwhelms with pyrotechnics or audacious innovations. It is its wilful intimate revelations that set it apart, and it places Haarla in rarefied company – Annette Peacock, Billy Strayhorn and precious few others. Several compositions articulate a unique, stoic brand of torch music.”
Bill Shoemaker, Point of Departure.
The second album from Iro Haarla’s Finnish-Norwegian quintet carries forward the work begun on the composer-pianist-harpist’s “Northbound” album, which helped to focus overdue attention on Haarla’s music in its own right as well as on her role as a shaping force in progressive jazz. “Vespers”, likewise, extends a tradition of music - and a scope of feeling - that Iro helped establish in the Far North in her years as arranger/orchestrator for Edward Vesala’s bands and for his influential ECM recordings, including “Lumi”, “Ode To The Death Of Jazz”, “Invisible Storm” and “Nordic Gallery”. Haarla’s group includes powerful bassist Uffe Krokfors, himself a former member of Vesala’s Sound & Fury ensemble, who has partnered with Iro in most of her musical activities of the last decade. The quintet line-up was assembled in 2004 with help from producer Manfred Eicher, and with saxophonist Trygve Seim an important contributor from the outset. Seim, who played briefly with Edward Vesala at the end of the 1990s, has often remarked upon the influence of Vesala-Haarla on his own writing. Plans to continue work in a quartet with Edward and Iro were cut short by Vesala’s death in 1999, but Seim went on to tour Finland with Haarla.
“Northbound” and “Vespers” feature another very unique drummer, Jon Christensen, one of the innovators. He brings to Iro Haarla’s music his own special sense of dynamics, sensitivity and unpredictability. Like Vesala he understands how to play very persuasively and very individually in the free ballad zone. Indeed, he helped to shape it.
Now a rising star on the international jazz scene, Mathias Eick counts his experiences with Haarla as crucial for his development. “I really grew in working with Iro Haarla,” he told the International Trumpet Guild Journal in 2008. “It was fantastic to work with her. I got my first chance to work extensively in a slow, rubato style. [Iro’s songs] demand a lot of you because you have to communicate effectively with other musicians which is really hard in music like this. It’s quite difficult music, but a rewarding experience.” It was through working with Iro that Eick and Trygve Seim would hone their special musical understanding, their way of phrasing together. Subsequently they brought their highly compatible sounds into the very different context of Manu Katché’s group (see the album “Playground”), and Eick has since made occasional guest appearances with Trygve’s large ensembles.
from the jury statement of the Finnish Jazz Federation’s Yrjö-Award 2006.
“Compared to ‘Northbound’, all of Haarla’s previous recordings seem like preliminaries. This studio album is stunning, but not in the sense that it overwhelms with pyrotechnics or audacious innovations. It is its wilful intimate revelations that set it apart, and it places Haarla in rarefied company – Annette Peacock, Billy Strayhorn and precious few others. Several compositions articulate a unique, stoic brand of torch music.”
Bill Shoemaker, Point of Departure.
The second album from Iro Haarla’s Finnish-Norwegian quintet carries forward the work begun on the composer-pianist-harpist’s “Northbound” album, which helped to focus overdue attention on Haarla’s music in its own right as well as on her role as a shaping force in progressive jazz. “Vespers”, likewise, extends a tradition of music - and a scope of feeling - that Iro helped establish in the Far North in her years as arranger/orchestrator for Edward Vesala’s bands and for his influential ECM recordings, including “Lumi”, “Ode To The Death Of Jazz”, “Invisible Storm” and “Nordic Gallery”. Haarla’s group includes powerful bassist Uffe Krokfors, himself a former member of Vesala’s Sound & Fury ensemble, who has partnered with Iro in most of her musical activities of the last decade. The quintet line-up was assembled in 2004 with help from producer Manfred Eicher, and with saxophonist Trygve Seim an important contributor from the outset. Seim, who played briefly with Edward Vesala at the end of the 1990s, has often remarked upon the influence of Vesala-Haarla on his own writing. Plans to continue work in a quartet with Edward and Iro were cut short by Vesala’s death in 1999, but Seim went on to tour Finland with Haarla.
“Northbound” and “Vespers” feature another very unique drummer, Jon Christensen, one of the innovators. He brings to Iro Haarla’s music his own special sense of dynamics, sensitivity and unpredictability. Like Vesala he understands how to play very persuasively and very individually in the free ballad zone. Indeed, he helped to shape it.
Now a rising star on the international jazz scene, Mathias Eick counts his experiences with Haarla as crucial for his development. “I really grew in working with Iro Haarla,” he told the International Trumpet Guild Journal in 2008. “It was fantastic to work with her. I got my first chance to work extensively in a slow, rubato style. [Iro’s songs] demand a lot of you because you have to communicate effectively with other musicians which is really hard in music like this. It’s quite difficult music, but a rewarding experience.” It was through working with Iro that Eick and Trygve Seim would hone their special musical understanding, their way of phrasing together. Subsequently they brought their highly compatible sounds into the very different context of Manu Katché’s group (see the album “Playground”), and Eick has since made occasional guest appearances with Trygve’s large ensembles.
