Jukkis Uotila has founded an ensemble based on personal memories of gems of Finnish jazz from the 1970s to the present day. The set includes music from composers e.g. Esko Linnavalli, Eero Koivistonen, Olli Ahvenlahti, Severi Pyysalo, Jarmo Savolainen
and works by several other composers. Jukkis plays drums in the band and has gathered around him a group of younger masters.
Since the mid-1980s, drummer and pianist Jukkis Uotila’s (b. 1960) life has been defined not only by playing drums and composing, but also by teaching jazz music. However, Uotila, who served as the head of the jazz music subject group from 1986-1993 and as a professor from 1994, has at the same time had a versatile career as a musician; released nine albums containing his own music and worked as a studio musician on more than 120 recordings. As a composing musician, he has been playing the piano since he was six years old, but in band contexts the drummer only started showing his keyboard skills properly in the 2000s. In addition to his own band, he has played piano with several domestic and foreign stars such as Randy Brecker, Bob Mintzer, Tim Hagans, Billy Cobham, Ignacio Berroa, Billy Hart, Adam Nussbaum and Peter Erskine.
The years in New York in the early 1980s brought Uotila’s career to a new level. In the beginning, the recording and touring lineups consisted of New York jazz stars, including Dave Liebman, Bob Mintzer, Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Bob Berg, John Scofield, Jerry Bergonzi and Bill Frisell, and later Scandinavian greats such as Anders Jormin, Lars Jansson and Lars Danielsson. He also utilized these contacts in his own band Jukkis Uotila Band.
The biggest jazz legends in whose bands Uotila has played as a permanent member are probably trumpeter Randy Brecker, drummer Billy Cobham and harmonica player Toots Thielemans, but his long-term collaboration with trumpeter Tim Hagans, saxophonist Bob Rockwell and pianist Joey Calderazzo has also been noted internationally. In shorter projects and records, Jukkis has appeared in e.g. With Chet Baker, Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson and Kenny Wheeler.
Nordic cooperation has been an important part of Uotila’s career for a long time, and in addition to recordings by individual bandleaders, he played for 28 years as the drummer of the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra. Uotila was active in the UMO Jazz Orchestra between 1986 and 1993 and also led the orchestra in 20 different projects. Uotila’s career has also been awarded many times. In 1991, he received the Yrjö Prize of the Jazz Association in 1991 and the State Prize for Composition in 2011. In its justification, it was stated that he was “Finland’s most internationally respected jazz musician of all time”.
At the Porvoo Jazz Festival in Vanha 123, the audience is always served two experiences with one ticket. The gigs start in venues 1 and 2 at the same time, and after a short break, the audience switches places and hears the second performer of the evening. In addition to Jukkis Uotila Plays Finnish Jazz Classics, Selma Savolainen’s Horror Vacuita will be heard at Friday’s concert.
Selma Savolainen Horror Vacui // Jukkis Uotila Plays Finnish Jazz Classics
Fri 29.9. at 20 (doors 19.15), Vanha 123
Tickets €30/€25 in advance, €35 at the door K-18
EARLY BIRD TICKETS -€5 untill 15.6.