The Five Corners Quintet (FI)

Even though this success story has all the ingredients of an honest-to-pete urban legend, every bit of it is true: Helsinki’s The Five Corners Quintet was never supposed to be a real, performing ensemble. But, the first vinyl single Trading Eights (2003) released under its name was actually a semi-conceptual gag that came about from an impulse of two young jazz fans. Producer-guitarist Tuomas Kallio and book publisher Antti Eerikäinen simply decided to see whether they could make a studio jazz recording with a 1960s sound that Eerikäinen could play on his own DJ gigs.

And made it they did, even though the double bassist Tapani Nevalainen and drummer Pekka Jaclin mentioned on the sleeves of the first single records were nothing more than fictitious musicians, digitally created by sampling old jazz albums. However, the ripple effect of this was far-reaching: the demand for the singles exceeded all expectation and a real band had to be assembled to perform. The Five Corners Quintet soon became a successful export phenomenon. Its first album, Chasin’ The Jazz Gone By (2005), sold more than 50,000 (!) copies. At the same time, Ricky-Tick Records, which was founded by Eerikäinen for this specific purpose, emerged as a successful label, whose stylish releases have brought jazz back to where it partly belongs: on the dance floor as music for young adults.

All in all, The Five Corners Quintet remained active as an ensemble for roughly five years, and their reputation mostly lives on in memory. The first album, which was partially compiled from the singles, was followed only by Hot Corner (2008), and the even hotter live album, The Helsinki Sessions (2011), which showcases the ensemble at its height. After more than two hundred gigs in Finland and abroad, the quintet had fused into a unit, in which the musicians played all for one and one for all.

In recent months, The Five Corners Quintet has resurrected the same Helsinki spirit at a few selected gigs and is also returning to Tampere Jazz Happening for the first time in twenty years.