Olli Ahvenlahti New Quintet (FI)

Olli Ahvenlahti (b. 1949) has been involved in many things and played many roles: as a pianist, composer, arranger, producer and bandleader as well as, among other things, a long-term conductor for Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle. Some may also remember him as a television presenter as well as a wigged character known to most Finns – Puppe, the nerdy Swedish accompanist for the hysterically cackling crooner, Jean-Pierre Kusela.

However, there is no need to wonder about or even explain Ahvenlahti’s first ever Tampere Jazz Happening concert. Ahvenlahti, who has played all manner of rhythmic music over the course of his long career, has finally returned to compose and play what still most inflames his desire to play: modern, melodic ‘fusion jazz’. By coincidence, he also started his solo career with two fusion albums recorded in Stockholm, which have become timeless, Finnish classics over time. His first album Bandstand was released in the spring of 1975, while the second album, The Poet, with a more electric instrumentation, was released in the summer of 1976.

At Telakka, Ahvenlahti will be returning to his own golden age with his new quintet, whose oldest musicians were only small children in 1975. However, the music is not older than them, as the ensemble will only be performing songs from Ahvenlahti’s latest album, Mirror Mirror (2024), which he composed as a sort of sequel to The Poet. The stylistic throwbacks are therefore entirely intentional.

Ahvenlahti’s trademark sound is guaranteed by the same iconic instrument that has faithfully accompanied him everywhere since 1972: the Fender Rhodes 73 electric piano. Ahvenlahti bought the piano inspired by his favourite pianists at the time, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul. He now recalls that it would have been one of the first of its kind in Finland. ”Musiikki-Fazer had just got two of the pianos in, and I snapped up one of them and fellow pianist Heikki Sarmanto the other.”

Even though Ahvenlahti did not make an album with the Fender Rhodes for himself until two years later in the autumn of 1974, he was able to record the new exciting sounds of his new piano on at least three different albums. The first of these was singer-songwriter Pekka Streng’s Kesämaa [Summerland] (1972), which holds a special place in Ahvenlahti’s personal history for another reason as well. On the summery track Puutarhassa [In the Garden], Ahvenlahti improvised a solo on his new electric piano – the very first solo of his ever to be recorded on an album.