Released towards the end of last year, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola‘s latest record features a quartet drawn from the cream of European jazz talent, with Jasper Høiby on bass, Kit Downes on piano, and Olavi Louhivuori on drums. Høiby and Downes will be familiar to most listeners; perhaps less so may be Louhivuori, a Finnish improvising percussionist with whom Pohjola has worked for more than two decades.
Pohjola himself seems to strive for new sounds with each release: while the quartet format might be commonplace, Pohjola is breaking new ground, and Monkey Mind is a departure from his recent Edition albums, Animal Image and The Dead Don’t Dream. As he says, the title refers to “the uneasiness or restlessness of the mind, a state when it is burdened with chaos and excessive stress.”
Following the fast, hectic opener, ‘Party in The Attic’, the album maintains a mostly stately pace. There is a spacious grandeur to this music which allows the players to really stretch out and develop their ideas.
Much of Pohjola’s breathy playing is in the lower register and sometimes brings Kenny Wheeler to mind. When playing higher, he soars, bringing a searing clarity to his solos. Kit Downes’s playing is beautifully understated, at times seeming to echo a Bach fugue. Høiby’s lively bass is often to the forefront, sometimes accompanied only by Louhivuori’s insistent, double-time rhythms.
There are additional textures with electronic programming from Tuomo Prättälä, and on a couple of tracks, baritone sax (Linda Frederiksson), guitar (Raoul Björkenheim) and flute (Jusu Berghäll). These are always unobtrusive, while adding balance and ground the sound.
Monkey Mind is yet more evidence of Pohjola’s burgeoning skills as a composer and trumpeter. The nine pieces together create a vivid landscape, and the musicians are wonderful company in which to explore it.
