Kalle Kalima & Antti Lötjönen and Melissa Andana & Mikko Innanen

Kalle Kalima: Gitars
Antti Lötjönen: Double bass
&
Melissa Andana & Mikko Innanen: Saxophones
&
Hietsu Impro Orchestra

Kalle Kalima & Antti Lötjönen

The collaboration between guitarist Kalle Kalima, who is creating a wonderful career in Central Europe, and bassist Antti Lötjönen, one of the most important jazz musicians in Finland, started at Salo Jazz 2023.

Kalle Kalima’s and Antti Lötjönen’s collaboration brings together the experience of thousands of gigs on the world’s most important concert stages and the freshness of the new line-up. There is a limitless and memorable journey into the world of improvised music.

Kalle Kalima’s pace is breathtaking. He has spent the last few years touring mostly in Europe, but also in Africa, Asia and America. Kalima’s album “Flying like Eagles”, Knut Reiersrud on guitar, Jim Black on drums and Phil Donkin on bass, was released in August 2019 and the release concert of the album was at the Berlin Philharmonic. The Klima Kalima band with Oliver Steidle and Oliver Potratz won the “Neuer Deutscher Jazzpreis” award in 2008 and has released five albums. Kalima also leads K-18, a Finnish band that won Jazz-Emma in Finland in 2013. Kalima’s latest release is from autumn 2023, the album “Evolution” together with Andreas Schaerer (voice) and Tim Lefvebre (bass, David Bowie, Elvis Costello etc.) They toured Europe in the fall of 2023. Kalle’s skills have been trusted by the Lyon Opera, which commissioned the work “Dido & Aeneas, remembered” from him, and Kalima is a part-time professor of jazz guitar at the University of Lucerne.

Antti Lötjönen has had an impact for more than 20 years at the forefront of the Finnish jazz scene. He has accumulated performance experience in more than 30 countries and his playing can be heard on more than 100 jazz recordings as a member of Ilmiliekki Quartet, Verneri Pohjola Quartet, Aki Rissanen Trio, Mikko Innanen Autonomus, Timo Lassy Band and 3TM. In 2015, Antti was chosen as Pori Jazz’s Artist of the Year and in 2018 as Jazz Musician of the Year from the Jazz Musicians Association. Lötjönen is part of Hietsu is Happening! – a collective that was awarded the National Music Award 2021. He leads his own band “Antti Lötjönen Quintet East”. He has received international attention, e.g. while touring Europe as a member of the trio of five-time Grammy winner, drummer legend Jeff “Tain” Watts. He has performed e.g. At Blue Note clubs in New York, Tokyo and Milan, and at the most important festivals in Europe, Canada and Australia.

Watch the video from the duo’s concert in Salo: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8G0R6U3mw

Due to illness, Melissa Andana, who has just arrived in Finland, will be performing in place of Linda Fredriksson.

The concert is organized in cooperation with Hietsu is Happening! series of events.

Photos: Kalle Kalima – Oliver Potratz & Antti Lötjönen – Tuomas Timonen

The concert is supported by City of Helsinki, Svenska Kulturfonden and The Finnish Music Foundation.