Innanen/Sooäär/Bennink (FIN/EST/NL)

Mikko Innanen > saxophone
Jaak Sooäär > guitar
Han Bennink > drums

In the winter of 1998, while I was a second-year-student at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, my guitar teacher and docent at the conservatory, renowned Danish guitar player Pierre Dörge invited Peter Brötzmann to make a week-long workshop there. It turned out an intensive and creative week composing and playing a graphic symphony for a double jazz group. After the successful final concert we decided to keep up organizing creative workshops and Pierre proposed to invite Han Bennink with whom he had played a tour of school concerts back in the 60's (with John Tchicai and Misha Mengelberg).
As Pierre left the conservatory the following summer, I started to prepare the visit of Bennink, whom I had seen playing only once at Jazzkaar festival in Tallinn in 1994 with Myra Melford and Dave Douglas. I remeber him playing on wooden beer cases and running around the hall of Sakala centre, drumming on red chairs (the hall was built in the 80's for holding communist party meetings). It took more than a year to get the pracital side of Han's visit in order, but at last in March 1999 he was standing in front of us in a class room. We were seven students, all hungry for new ideas in alternative ways of improvising. The group also included the Finnish saxophone player Mikko Innanen, who had been at the Rhythmic Conservatory as an exhange student from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki since the previous September. We had done a bit of casual, not so serious jamming together with Mikko already by that time, but the thing with Mr Bennink...well, it turned out to be something far beyond that. (I think Mikko will agree with me on that one.)

Those three days with Han definitely inspired all of us to keep searching for our personal voices in improvising, but I even think that those days changed our life and way of thinking. For a young musician it is a miracle, how somebody can have a sound that is unmistakably recognizable after hearing it only for five seconds. It was especially Han's intensity while playing that caught my attention; listening to him playing is a very physical experience. And his way of using small details to develop a story on only playing on the snare drum or even only on the floor made a significant influence on me. And Han as a very warm and friendly person telling stories of the "real jazz times" left a great impression to all of us.
Two years later I met with Han at the backstage of Copenhagen Jazz House, while he was performing with Pierre Dörge's New Jungle Orchestra and to my great delight he proposed us to perform together. So I decided to ask Mikko to join us and concerts in Tallinn at Jazzkaar festival and at the Jumo jazz club in Helsinki were planned for the end of April 2003.
There is not much I can remeber of those concerts, it just felt really good to play. We almost had no possibility to practice before the concerts so most of the music was freely improvised, which did not mean that we would have avoided playing swing, flamenco, rock, calypso, folk, blues or even some country and ambient electronic influenced music.
Fortunately Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE recorded the concert at Jumo Jazz Club on April 29 and this concert is documented on this CD. I hope that the good feeling and spontaneous energy of this concert are present while listening to the record. Thank You, Han and Mikko for the great experience!

Jaak Sooäär
Tallinn, 24/10/2005

Booking:
Vapaat äänet - Charles Gil

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