The Jarmo Savolainen Trio was a band where three young people with strong personalities and relatively different musical backgrounds – Jarmo Savolainen, Ulf “Uffe” Krokfors and Markku Ounaskari – came together with a vision. Jarmo had been on the road for a relatively long time, playing a variety of different styles of music from progressive rock to be-bop with Berklee School of Music studies in his back pocket. Also drummer Markku was very much in demand at that time, and according to Uffe, it felt like he was either coming or going to practice or a gig in his white Peugeot. Uffe, who had already played a lot with Markku before founding the trio, had mostly worked with avant-garde music. He had played in the bands of Otto Donner, Edward Vesala and Raoul Björkenheim. In these, he had acquired a strong skill of creativity and improvisation.
The group started when Jarmo Savolainen made a proposal in the middle of the night after a night out. The proposal was finally accepted by the rest of the group, because Jarmo’s ability to make his own sound and combine it with his own flamboyant personality was fascinating. When the band started playing together, it quickly became clear to them that this was a trio with a unique sound. Jarmo’s songs functioned as frames within which everyone was free to be themselves. The members’ personal playing styles and musical ethos were naturally harnessed for Jarmo’s compositions.
The band’s recording John’s Sons has risen to a well-respected position in certain circles of musicians of the younger generation and it has been spinning hard on turntables. According to the band’s bassist Uffe Krokfors, the word “John” was used in a certain group of musicians in Helsinki’s Kallio as follows; When nowadays you can ask “what boogie?” so there was a time in Kallio when they said “what John?”, or just the word “John” was put at the end of the sentence depending on the current mood. The saying was coined by the composer-lyricist Jim Pembroke, who passed last year. One can say the trio is built on a certain kind of abstract, undefined atmosphere. Jazz music could be described in the same way. It is more than the sum of its parts.
“When three quite personable people spend time with each other, then thoughts are thrown around, humor runs rampant and characters refine their characters. “All I can say is that I am grateful that I got to know and play with such a great artist as Jarmo Savolainen.”- Ulf Krokfors “ -Ulf Krokfors
Reimagining John’s Sons
Aki Rissanen / piano
Ulf “Uffe” Krokfors / bass
Markku Ounaskari / drums