[TR24][OF] Iiro Rantala - My Finnish Calendar - 2019 (contemporary jazz, piano solo)

#777Ийро Эмиль Рантала (род. 19 января 1970, Хельсинки, Финляндия) — финский джазовый музыкант, композитор и пианист. Родился 19 января 1970 года в Хельсинки, в Финляндии. Занятия музыкой начал в возрасте семи лет в хоре мальчиков "Cantores Minores". Закончил академию Сибелиуса в Хельсинки по классу фортепиано, специализируясь на отделении джаза, а также курс классического фортепиано в Манхэттенской школе музыки. В 1988 году, в год поступления в академию Сибелиуса, Рантала, совместно с бас-гитаристом Ээриком Сиикасаари и ударником Рами Эскелиненом, основал успешный музыкальный коллектив Trio Töykeät, записавший семь студийных альбомов и выступивший в целом более 2000 раз. Trio Töykeät просуществовало до 2006 года, когда Рантала основал Iiro Rantala New Trio, в составе которого выступил в роли пианиста, Феликс Ценгер — битбоксера, а Марци Нюман играл на электрогитаре. Со времени своего основания коллектив объехал с гастролями почти всю Европу. Рантала в течение многих лет вёл на финском телевидении шоу Iiro irti («Ийро без границ»), где лично участвовал в выступлениях групп и артистов различных жанров. Рантала известен готовностью вступать в сотрудничество с исполнителями разных стилей и направлений, например в 2011 году он выступил на фестивале Ruisrock в Турку вместе с финской фолк/викинг-метал-группой Turisas. В декабре 2013 года Ийро Рантала награждён высшей наградой Финляндии для деятелей искусств — медалью «Pro Finlandia»
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Рантала_Ийро

#777Iiro Rantala (b.1970), probably “Finland's best known jazz musician internationally,” (Jazz Finland) has been an ACT exclusive artist since 2009. His years with the label have witnessed a steep rise in his renown outside Finland, and have produced a series of major albums, each one a significant and contrasting statement. He is an artist in his absolute prime, and now has the international standing that he so richly deserves.
A major public figure and musical advocate in Finland
As a teenager, Iiro Rantala was playing in several jazz and pop groups around Finland. When his Trio Töykeät was formed in 1988, Rantala concentrated on this group for 18 years. The trio were known for a unique combination of deep musicality and madcap humour, and played over 2,000 shows in forty-five countries.
At age of 26, Rantala also started a career in classical music, playing Mozart concertos and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with Finlands leading orchestras.
Within Finland itself, Rantala is a major public figure and an advocate for music. He has been a goodwill ambassador for Finnish Unicef since 1994. He has done extensive work as presenter for the national televison corporation Yle, hosting two popular TV series, “Iiro irti” (Iiro on the loose), and “Iirottelua” (a play on the Finnish expression for to let your hair down). He has also participated in 'Juhannusjuna' (Midsummer train), a TV programme which is a national institution in Finland. He has published his autobiography “Nyt sen voi jo kertoa” (Now It Can Be Told, 2011). Rantala has written music for dozens of plays and musicals, as well as a few feature length films. He has also hosted a piano festival and a concert series at the Allotria club in Helsinki. He has been running the Jazz Piano Festival at Kapsäkki since 2011. His recognition in Finland continues: in 2013 he was given Finland’s highest award for artists the Pro Finlandia medal, and in 2015 a substantial five-year grant for artistic work by Finnish state.
The ACT years have brought international profile
Rantala's move to ACT proved a success from the start. His first release for the label was “Lost Heroes,” a solo piano album which came out in February 2011. It was hailed as “a giant of an album” by AllAboutJazz.com, and “a masterpiece” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). It earned him the 2012 ECHO Jazz award for Best International Pianist, and the album received the annual prize of the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik. It has proved of lasting value: in early 2016 it was garlanded with a German Jazz GOLD Award.
In late 2012, “My History of Jazz” was released. The critical reaction as Rantala’s international profile started to increase was above all to praise the breadth of his inspiration: “Iiro’s a hero,” wrote the late Jack Massarik in London’s Evening Standard, describing the pianist as “a virtuoso who raises versatility to another level.”
In “Anyone with a Heart”, released in 2014, the pianist was joined by a violinist (Adam Bałdych) and a cellist (Asja Valcic) - the instrumentation of the classical piano trio – to reveal the more tender, classically-inspired side of his artistry. Both the widely read German magazine Fono Forum and Concerto in Austria gave it five stars. “Simply beautiful and stylistically confident,” was the verdict of Frankfurt Radio.
In 2015 two contrasting albums followed. “It takes two to tango” was a happy and friendly dialogue with saxophonist Jukka Perko, in which AllAboutJazz.com enjoyed the two players’ “respectful humor that keeps the album bouncing through evergreens and oddities alike.” Rantala’s thoughtful solo piano tribute to John Lennon “My Working Class Hero” brought a different, more reflective side, a “liturgy of memories and love for the music.” (LondonJazz News)
Iiro Rantala was asked earlier this year to name his favourite piano players. “Richard Tee, Egberto Gismonti, Keith Jarrett and Michel Petrucciani,” he responded. The surprising name in there is the first one. Tee was a studio player on countless soul and R&B albums, who died in 1993. That influence is to the fore on “How Long is Now” (2016), an “infectious, tuneful and swinging trio album” (Times of London) made with Lars Danielsson on bass and Peter Erskine on drums.
Awards have continued to be conferred on Rantala. In the laudatory speech presenting him with the JTI Trier Jazz Award 2016, the respected jazz critic of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Ralf Dombrowski said: “More than ever, Iiro Rantala is now playing what he enjoys. He is a seasoned performer and his touch at the piano is uniquely beguiling. His ability subtly to vary his sound and the imagination he brings to his melodic lines are unforgettable. Rantala can sweep listeners of their feet, he can be clown and magician, charmer and virtuoso, maverick and humorist.”
(November 2016)
https://www.actmusic.com/en/Artists/Iiro-Rantala/Biografie

Each piece on "My Finnish Calendar" represents a month of the year, and each also exists as an independent artistic statement. And if the storyline might not always be directly apparent from the music, Rantala has provided explanations and hilarious anecdotes in his liner notes. The sheer strength with which all this inspiration has been bubbling up becomes clear right at the beginning of the year.
Iiro Rantala is a jazz chameleon who loves to appear in many guises. The Finnish pianist invariably springs a surprise with the concepts for his albums, particularly those of his solo piano projects. For "My Finnish Calendar", he has turned a new page: this is improvised music but with an extra-musical narrative: from a very personal and Finnish point of view, he has set to music the passing of a complete year in his home country, and he has done it with his typical mixture of melodic inventiveness, melancholy and humour. His well-known technical finesse and mastery, acquired over the years, have been applied here with an unerring instinct for bringing the essential to the fore.
Each piece on this album represents a month of the year, and each also exists as an independent artistic statement. And if the storyline might not always be directly apparent from the music, Rantala has provided explanations and hilarious anecdotes in his liner notes. The sheer strength with which all this inspiration has been bubbling up becomes clear right at the beginning of the year: "January" sets the sequence in motion with a mighty hymn in a minor key, true to Rantala's description of this "month of regret." As he explains, "Finns regret that they spent too much money on Christmas, ate too much and definitely drank too much on Christmas and New Year. Many Finns are cleaning their system and have an alcohol-free month of January. That doesn’t make them happier people." The exact opposite is then heard in February: a cheerful, lively whirl of staccato sweeps over the listener, as the Finns are now “at their best. All kinds of snow activities make them happy.” But by March it has been cold and dark for long enough. The Finns are bored of winter, so Rantala's "March" is a sparkling, slightly melancholic chanson: “the Finns are dreaming of a trip to Paris, where spring is already happening."
Rantala finds a fitting way to explain the significance of each month through music. From the “summer-planning month” of May, piano strings muffled, and becoming ever more dynamic, to the “Kesäkuu” (meaning summer month) of June (which is in reality “very cold and uber rainy”) and for which he finds a melody which sounds almost cabaret-inspired, to the travel month of July and then on to August which is the best weather-wise, but when everyone is obliged to go back to school or work – which Rantala captures in a strict, almost classical fugue. Into autumn, there is a stately build-up from the sentimental romanticism of September and a stormy October to the darkness of November, which Rantala interprets as a comforting ballad deftly aligned to the Finnish character. And finally on to December, which is full of work, until the Finns are totally exhausted. As Rantala explains playfully: "Everything that makes January the month of regret is built up to in December." With that, the whole sequence can start afresh – indeed, this Finnish calendar is such appealing music, one wants to hear right through again – and straight away.
"My Finnish Calendar" is Iiro Rantala's third solo album. He has remained true and consistent to the artistic beliefs that shaped both of his previous recordings: "Jazz needs melodies,” he says. “It needs things that people can latch on to." On his ACT debut "Lost Heroes" (2011) Rantala proved his outstanding ability to venerate great predecessors and role models, from Bill Evans, Erroll Garner and Art Tatum to Esbjörn Svensson, Michel Petrucciani and even Luciano Pavarotti. He didn’t copy them, what shone through was his own identity. Then, in 2015 he captivated his audience with his interpretation of John Lennon's music. In "My Working Class Hero", Rantala succeeded in creating an anthem to the great revolutionary of pop, in an incredibly subtle way and in a true jazz spirit. And he has now reinvented himself again, as a researcher observing the Finnish seasons through jazz...
https://www.actmusic.com/en/Artists/Iiro-Rantala/My-Finnish-Calendar/My-Finnish-Calendar-CD