Arvostettu saksalaismerkki ACT on solminut eksklusiivisen levytysopimuksen suomalaissaksofonisti Jukka Perkon kanssa. Ensimmäistä kertaa levymerkin julkaisulla Perkoa kuullaan legendaarisen saksalaisrumpali Wolfgang Haffnerin tammikuussa ilmestyvällä uutuusalbumilla Kind Of Cool.
Huhtikuussa 2015 Perko julkaisee yhteisalbumin It Takes Two To Tango toisen ACT-merkille levyttävän maineikkaan suomalaisartistin, pianisti Iiro Rantalan kanssa.
JUKKA PERKO & IIRO RANTALA Duo Art
It Takes Two To Tango
ACT 9629-2 / julkaisu huhtikuussa 2015
Jukka Perko saksofoni
Iiro Rantala piano
ACT announces collaboration with Jukka Perko
ACT has signed an exclusive artist contract with Finish Saxophonist Jukka Perko. He will appear as a sideman on the new album “Kind Of Cool” by German drummer-bandleader Wolfgang Haffner (release January 30th). In April 2015 ACT will release Perko’s first album as a co-leader – the duo recording “It Takes Two To Tango” with pianist Iiro Rantala
With only five and a half million inhabitants in an area as big as Germany, Finland is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe. At the same time, the Finns are at the forefront of many fields – be it education, design or technology – and a good number of their European neighbours look north not without some envy. And the signs are good that the jazz from Finland looks forward to a similarly bright future: Alongside the likeable multi-talent on the piano Iiro Rantala, Jukka Perko is now considered to be the second, and currently the most important ambassador of Finnish jazz. Born in 1968, he was hired on to the “Dizzy Gillespie 70th Anniversary Big Band” at the tender age of 20, with which he toured intensively through Europe and the USA. That was followed by collaborations with bebop and hardbop greats the likes of Red Rodney and McCoy Tyner and Scandinavian icons like Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Like Rantala, Perko also has roots in occidental artistic music as well as in jazz, and he plays regularly with classical orchestras. These two aspects – the American jazz roots and the European classic and folklore – are reflected to this day in his music and compositions on nine albums. “It Takes Two To Tango” is the first joint recording of the two, in a lyrically dense discourse on the topic of love in all its facets. It is an homage to their musical homeland and the uniting power of jazz.
JUKKA PERKO & IIRO RANTALA Duo Art
It Takes Two To Tango
ACT 9629-2 / Release Date: April 24
Jukka Perko saxophone
Iiro Rantala piano