Rantala, Iiro - My History of Jazz
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Iiro Rantala, piano
Lars Danielsson, bass & cello
Morten L, drums
Adam Baldych, violin
That old discussion has broken out again: What is jazz? Who does it belong to? Where does it begin? The latter of these questions is at least not an issue for the Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala: "Johann Sebastian Bach and his music came into my life when I was six." So it comes as no surprise that Bach ties up his new ACT album "My History Of Jazz" - Rantala's personal history of the music that captivated him when he was 13 is embedded in the classically rendered aria: "Ever since then I always wanted to become an improviser, composer, stage performer and bandleader". A universal concept shown on the five greatly varied improvisations on the Goldberg Variations, upon which Rantala threads the album like a string of pearls.
"My History Of Jazz" is the logical counterpart to Rantala's ACT debut "Lost Heroes", on which he built a unique personal monument to past musical paragons and kindred spirits - so unique, in fact, that it won him Germany's most important music awards, the "Echo Jazz" and the annual "German Record Critics Award", amongst others. There too, the Finnish classical composers Jean Sibelius and Pekka Pohjola were of course also among the inspirations, as were the entirely dissimilar jazz piano legends Art Tatum, Erroll Garner and Michel Petrucciani. This time, great composers find their way into Rantala's kingdom, like George Gershwin ("Liza"), Kurt Weill ("September Song"), Duke Ellington and his valve trombonist Juan Tizol ("Caravan"), Thelonious Monk ("Eronel") and the Swedish cool jazz saxophonist Lars Gullin ("Danny's Dream").
With "My History Of Jazz" Rantala places himself at the head of a new pianist generation that liberates itself from the inflated cult of the "all new" and instead returns to build on the old jazz tradition of studying the great inventors of the genre, of admiring them and of using them for one's own sound. "The great thing about being a musician is that you don't have to invent everything yourself," Rantala says. "You can listen to the people who were there before you and learn from them. Many people ask me what my influences are, who I like and who I've arranged for myself. I've always been very open-minded about that."