What is jazz? What is improvisation and inspiration? Classically educated drummer, percussionist Janne Tuomi is a frequent visitor in various jazz occasions, but doesn't want to be labelled a jazz musician.
Mitä on jazz? Mistä muusikko inspiroituu? Uusimmassa Jazzpressossa kysymyksiä pohtii klassisen musiikkikoulutuksen saanut lyömäsoittaja Janne Tuomi. Jazzkentän rajaviivoja sotkeva Tuomi on akateemisen jazzin outsider - vai onko?
Impressions of my residency at Villa Karo, a Finnish-African culture centre and a residence for artists, in Benin, West-Africa.
Opinnäytetyö: Hälystä musiikiksi : Näkökulmia Edgard Varèsen sävellykseen Ionisation
Press quotes:
Over the last five years, Finnish percussionist Janne Tuomi has convincingly occupied several strikingly different musical worlds. He's collaborated with John Zorn on his notoriously complex performance-only piece Cobra; he's played drums with Finnish neo-Krautrock unit Circle, on their 2007 album Arkades; and he's appeared as a symphony orchestra soloist with Minoru Miki's Z-Concerto. Unsurprisingly, his solo work -captured on his 2004 debut, Approaching, and the follow-up, Resonance - has combined a number of approaches including free jazz, drone and contemporary classical. With this latest, he adds a thick layer of electronic effects and multitracking, which allow solo percussion to explore rich new worlds through two long pieces.The title track sets up an insistent cymbal-crash rhythm that quickly settles into a backround of white noise. Tuomi adds layers of contrasting timbres - rumbling tympani, shrieking cymbal scrapes and finally a brawny, free workout at the drum kit - but throughout attention is repeatedly drawn to the dubwise manipulations of the background. Tweaked so that it appears near then far, sharp then muffled, it creates a queasy exercise in perspective, as if the floor were repeatedly dropping out from under your feet, to be replaced by another, then another. The slightly shorter "suo" is a more meditative piece with gongs and rattles put through thick reverb and making a voluptuous yet alien soundworld that fleshes out ideas put forward nearly 50 years ago by Sun Ra's Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy. By the end, it sounds like a Far East courtly ritual reflected back from a distant planet.
There is a notable precedent for what Tuomi is doing here. In the 1980's, Californian percussionist z'ev's dark, metallic drones helped to define and extend Industrial music. In the 21st century, Tuomi's serious yet psychedelic electroacoustic constructions could do something analogous for the post-Noise era.
Daniel Spicer
The Wire Magazine
http://rosvot.fi/jazzpossu/hot-heros-fill-up-with-old-time-salvation
http://aamulehdenblogit.ning.com/profiles/blogs/tapio-tuomi-duo-ja-hot-heros-telakalla-29-1-2016
This is all acoustic percussion music and it is superbly recorded. This music is closer to classical percussion music in its sound and it is consistently thoughtful and engaging.
On "Kunlun I", Janne concentrates on just a gong and comes up with some impressive and mysterious results. A most impressive offering from a young master-percussionist that we will be hearing more from in the near future."
”The structure of Approaching, its varied instrumentation and mutations of pace readily suggest narrative, with Tuomi as storyteller relating a journey through a series of states from turbulence to eventual meditative calm. More importantly, it's a lively and serious engagement with the power, colour and nuance of sound. The rattling shells, gong splash and tinkling bells are evocative but they are also as much the substance of the music as Tuomi's energetic polyrhytmic kitwork."
”Approaching shows that Tuomi, while absorbing useful precedents from a range of musical fields, has developed his own vision of where the percussionist's role may take him.”
”Tuomi’s use of wide ranging tones contributes to the cd’s distinctive soundscapes. They feel as though they have been carefully collaged using instrumental soundings that entirely compliment each other. It is both colourful and absorbing in its execution and the deployment of materials and should certainly tempt anyone who thinks an album consisting solely of percussion is not for them.”
”The final piece, ”Contemplation,” really emphasizes the ritual aspect as Tuomi moves from cymbals to Indian drones to thumb piano and, finally, gongs with a grand sense of form and purpose, not unlike what the late Finnish drummer Edward Vesala used to do in his bands. A lot of Finnish jazz draws from the folk elements of their culture. Here is one impressive example."
Yet, this is ordered, thoughtful music, and it is pleasantly surprising how much there is to hear.”
” Tuomi builds each piece carefully, even meticulously.”
”adventurous, unique album.”
Approaching, his solo debut from 2004, kicks up clouds of sustained, polymorphous rhythms that are as stark as an empty temple yet as powerful as a collapsing building. Well-placed bursts of pocket trumpet and reverberating gongs add color to the shifting, tidal clatter. Like a less industrial, quieter Z'ev for the new millennium, Tuomi has located a unique intersection between avant-garde drone, the jazz improv of Edward Vesala or Milford Graves, and the grace of mother nature herself."
"..he uses a range of gongs and tuned percussion as well as trumpet to create a scenario that is meditative and dramatic by turns. There are a number of sounds that suggest an Eastern provenance placed next to the muted melodies of an African mbira. It is a very effective and attractive fusion whatever the sources may be."
Paul Donnelly, ejazznews
”Tuomi’s solo methodolgy consists of noisy drumkit bashing alternating with gongs and cymbals sounding in shimmering waves, a pattern that takes on the feel of ritual. The drones, rattles, and sickly trumpet added to this at various times increase the aura of mystery and elemental energy.”
Jerome Wilson, Cadence Jazz Magazine
”Approaching does not sound like jazz in the conventional sense. It does not swing, and it is often difficult, even impossible, to ascertain how much is composed and how much is improvised.
Marc Meyers, AllAbout Jazz
”...the drumming is so intensely enjoyable it needs to be heard without accompaniment to be enjoyed properly. Difficult, but deep and rewarding, ‘Approaching’ is a marvellous record.”
Boomkat Records
”Carefully constructed, rising and falling, with hazy drone and dramatic clatter, soothing bells and rattling sticks...not a noisy racket at all, but a personal sound-world quite listenable for something that falls into the 'solo percussion' category.”
Aquarius Records
