Mikko Innanen - This is It (2021)

This is it, indeed. The instrumentation of this album makes everyone curious. Saxophones (sopranino, alto and baritone) plus Hammond organ plus drums. The gathered names are another factor of special interest: Finnish saxophonist Mikko Innanen, French organist (also pianist) Cédric Piromalli and Danish drummer Stefan Pasborg, all of them coming from the first row of their respective scenes, and all of them with international careers, in collaboration with top musicians like Andrew Cyrille, Han Bennink, Andrew Barker, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith (Innanen), Daniel Humair, Paul Lovens, Will Guthrie (Piromalli), John Tchicai, Ellery Eskelin, Tim Berne, Michael Formanek, Tomasz Stanko and Ray Anderson (Pasborg). The Hammond is key in the group sound, rooted in the history of this instrument in jazz (listen to the grooves and the solid swing of these compositions: amazing!), but also involving other influences, among them the one provided by progressive rock. The foundations and involvements created by the organ couldn’t be better suited to project the suggestive melodies and complex chord changes played by Innanen, and the intense, almost superhuman drumming of Pasborg. Mixing the past and the future results in this: fantastic music of the present.