THE FIVE CORNERS QUINTET - Hot Corner »
"The Five Corners Quintet is a Helsinki-based postmodern jazz outfit influenced by early sixties straight ahead and latin jazz. Led by producer Tuomas Kallio the Five Corners Quintet is a new extension of the highly acclaimed Nuspirit Helsinki collective.
The enormously successful live band consisting of Teppo Mäkynen (drums/bandleader), Timo Lassy (sax), Jukka Eskola (trumpet), Mikael Jakobsson (piano), and Antti Lötjönen (double bass), also remains. On “Hot Corner”, however, the band takes a larger role in comparison to the first album. Tuomas Kallio is the “commander-in-chief” once again, but there’s a stronger sense of community also in the studio.
The new sound of TFCQ could be described as leaning towards the “Hot” of the album title more than the cool of their previously recorded work. Here, the impact of the live band is evident. Kallio’s compositions also move away from standard jazz into fresh new territories, where even the occasional flirt with genres such as rockabilly is to be expected. The EP preceding the album release already showed marks of the band “rocking” rather than “swinging”, and those directions are further explored on the upcoming album.
One thing is certain: The Five Corners Quintet have a knack at searching and finding new directions instead of following paths trampeled by others. Of this, their new album “Hot Corner” is an ample piece of evidence."
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THE FIVE CORNERS QUINTET
The Five Corners Quintet is a Helsinki-based postmodern jazz outfit influenced by early sixties straight ahead and latin jazz. Led by producer Tuomas Kallio the Five Corners Quintet is a new extension of the highly acclaimed Nuspirit Helsinki collective.
The two innovators behind Five Corners Quintet, composer, producer and arranger Tuomas Kallio and the band's benevolent svengali and record label manager Antti Eerikäinen initially were simply set out to release a few vinyl singles of stylish jazz music tailored for the dance floor. As the first three vinyl single releases received a huge response among the press and taste makers such as Gilles Peterson, Norman Jay, Rainer Truby, Jazzanova and Mr. Scruff and at the same were all sold out selling over 12000 copies in total, the Five Corners Quintet project slowly evolved into an established and more serious phase. This meant two things: setting up a live band and a CD-album project.
“Those were 100 percent chaotic experiences. We lacked proper equipment and knowledge of what this new electronic music was really all about. Nevertheless we managed to pull things off somehow, mostly due to our enthusiasm rather than skill, I must say.”
In musical terms the goal of the FCQ is to set an example of how dance floor-friendly contemporary production can fruitfully meet the musical craftsmanship of the past, creating music that sounds as hip as the classic jazz records but is at the same time structurally polished and easily accessible music of today. Not housey nu-jazz, but jazz in the classic modernist spirit.
Studio production
In studio the Five Corners Quintet is a contemporary project gathering separately the right people for each song from a pool of musicians that are some of the very best players of the Finnish and international jazz scene. Musical production is utilizing both the analog and digital domain, drawing on tools from tape recorders to samplers and sequencers. Even though the final sound and feel is a lot alike, the production approach of FCQ is thus entirely different from a mid-20th century studio setting.
Live
The Five Corners Quintet performing live is another story. The live band is a phenomenal jazz quintet - or at times a sextet or even bigger - that can appeal both to a critical seated jazz audience and a dancing club crowd. On stage The Five Corners Quintet is a real band featuring real musicians: no machines, no samplers, no DJ's but instead a lot of energy, interaction and world class level of musicianship. The live band consists of the very cream of the Finnish jazzmen. Eero Koivistoinen is a tenor sax heavyweight who has been around since the sixties. Jukka Eskola is a young trumpet phenomenon and the Finnish equivalent for Freddie Hubbard. Severi Pyysalo on vibes is a Blue Note recording artist and the drummer Teppo Mäkynen, who is voted as the number 1 drummer among the Finnish jazz press year after year, is internationally known for Nuspirit Helsinki and his solo project Teddy Rok Seven.
LINKS:
www.thefivecornersquintet.com
www.myspace.com/thefivecornersquintet
