THE MUSICIANS

Mikko Innanen (b. 1978) is a Finnish saxophone player and composer who graduated in 2003 from the jazz department of Sibelius-Academy, the only university level music academy in Finland. Innanen spent one year of his studies - from 1998 until 1999 - in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, where he also met Stefan Pasborg and Nicolai Munch-Hansen. Over the last few years, he has played with a number of groups, including several groups with other young Finnish jazz musicians such as Nuijamiehet, Gourmet and Mr Fonebone as well as Delirium (with Danes Kasper Tranberg, Jonas Westergaard and Stefan Pasborg), the French piano trio Triade (Cedric Piromalli, Sebastian Boisseau, Nicolas Larmignat), The European Jazz Youth Orchestra, Itchy (with Jakob Dinesen, Jeppe Skovbakke and Rune Kielsgaard) and the UMO Jazz Orchestra. He has also performed with percussionist Han Bennink, bassist Barry Guy, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and many others, including virtually all of the musicians currently active on the Finnish jazz scene. He was awarded a one-year artist´s grant by the Finnish State´s Arts Council in 2003, the best soloist´s prize at the International Competition for Jazz Groups in Getxo, Spain, in 2000 and the first prize at the first Jukka Perko Saxophone Competition in 2001.

John Tchicai (b. 1936) was born to a Danish mother and a Congolese father in Denmark, where he also grew up. In the 1960s, Tchicai specialized in playing the alto saxophone but began to increasingly use the bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, bamboo flutes and percussion in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Since the early 1980s, tenor saxophone has been his principal instrument, which he also uses on this recording with the exception of "Undercurrent". After moving to New York in 1962, Tchicai participated in some of the most revolutionary recording sessions of the early 1960s, including the recordings by the two groups that he co-founded, the New York Contemporary Five (with Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Don Moore and J. C. Moses) and the New York Art Quartet (with Roswell Rudd, Lewis Worrell and Milford Graves), as well as recordings by John Coltrane (Ascension, Impulse), Archie Shepp (Four for Trane, Impulse), Albert Ayler (New York Eye and Ear Control, ESP) and the Jazz Composers Orchestra (Communication, Fontana). During this time, he was also a member of the Jazz Composers Guild. Following his return to Denmark in 1966, Tchicai became a central figure in European avant-garde. Throughout the years, he has performed and recorded with his own groups, including Cadentia Nova Danica, and also frequently collaborated with guitarists Pierre Dorge and Derek Bailey, bassist Johnny Dyani, pianists Misha Mengelberg, Kristian Blak and Cecil Taylor, and many others. In 2000, the New York Art Quartet made its celebrated 35th Reunion recording and, in recent years, Tchicai has again increasingly recorded in the United States. Tchicai moved to Davis, California, in 1991 and, after a decade there, he now lives in Claira, France. In 1990, the Danish Ministry of Culture recognized Tchicai´s work by awarding him a lifetime achievement grant.

Nicolai Munch-Hansen (b. 1977) studied at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in 1997-1998. One of the most in-demand bassists in Denmark today, Munch-Hansen plays both the acoustic and the electric bass and regularly performs both with jazz and with rock groups. His affiliations have included the rock band Larryland, the group Beautiful Day (with guitarist Jakob Bro, saxophonist Jakob Dinesen and drummer Jeppe Gram) and the band of Tim Christensen, a Danish rock/pop singer/songwriter. He has also performed with trumpeter Jens Winther, pianist Carsten Dahl, guitarist Niclas Knudsen as well as singers C. V. Jørgensen, Caroline Henderson and Nikolai Nørlund among many others.

Stefan Pasborg (b. 1974) graduated from the soloist line at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in 2002. During the last five years, he has become known on the Danish jazz scene as a highly personal drummer as well as a composer and bandleader. He is especially well known for his work within the more experimental jazz music. In the last few years, he has performed and recorded with a number of internationally renowned musicians, including guitarist Marc Ducret, trumpeter Herb Robertson, bassist Michael Formanek as well as saxophonists John Tchicai, Jesper Zeuthen and Lotte Anker. At the present time, he plays regularly with Toxikum (co-led with saxophonist Liudas Mockunas), Delirium and a number of other bands. In addition to Denmark, Pasborg has performed in a number of other European countries and in the United States. He has been awarded several prizes, including the soloist prize at the 16th European Jazz Contest in Leverkusen, Germany; the Rhythmic Music Conservatory Talent Prize; the first prize at the 5th European Tournament for Improvised Music in Poitiers, France, in 2002; and the Danish Arts Foundation´s grant for artistic work in 2003.