The Pop-Liisa / Jazz-Liisa series Part 2 [limited time only]

First of all I would really need to apologize for the record cover just above... surely one of the worst ever considering the contents, but a good representation of the sickening stupidity that descended on the cultural world in the 80s.

The Jazz-Liisa (discogs summary) side of things might be a little less enjoyable to me due to the overabundance of free jazz, which I don't mind in small doses, but can't stand when it inflates to occupy two thirds of an hour of my limited time. So for me polyawful Unisono Quartet, whose 1975 album I detested (1), ethnic 'migrant invasion' Piirpauke (15), ramblin' Aaltonen (17), never-ending Vesala (18)-- these are artists others love but I hate, and I'll give 'em some Trumpian nicknames for the hell of it.

Interestingly, Otto Donner (10) plays his songs from the famous and much-loved and requested Strings album I posted here two years ago, and Jukka Linkola (6) plays tracks from his first album I also put here, long ago, in fact 4 and a half years back.  Believe it or not, that Strings post is one of the most popular ever for this blog, with literally thousands of page views. It's a beautiful, beautiful work.

Now I'll discuss the rest, which are a mixed bag.
The 2 presents a band I never heard of, but they are surely interesting, they never appeared anywhere else (the name is annoying and has too many vowels).  Jukka Tolonen is back in round 3 with long, very rambling, and to me boring very-mild-maniac fusion tracks.

KOM quartet (4) is to me the big highlight of this series, along with 5's Jupu Group who with Jukka Hauru were the masters of Finnish progressive fusion.  In fact, the KOM quartet you will notice included Jukka Hauru.  (Whilst Jupu had Jukka Linkola.)  Evidently he had a golden touch, like German Wolfgang Dauner.  He shares compositional credits with a Finnish composer called Eero Ojanen (side b), which gives the whole a classical vibe, in fact, operatic vocals are featured on some of the tracks, making it sound a bit like for ex. the Gerardo Batiz album Arlequin.
One of side a (J. Hauru)'s tracks:





No. 7 (Oton Kvartetti / Wasama-Tuominen Trio) is acoustic material that suffers from being over long, a common sickness in jazz, presumably infectious.  No. 8 features Wasama Quartet on the second side, a band that made some great folky fusion with ethnic components like so many other bands I've posted here (e.g. Membrillar from Arg., East River Consort from US), and a duo of pianist and cellist who play just a gorgeously graceful set of compositions:





It doesn't get any more emotional and beautiful than that. Sadly they never released a full LP.
For Wasama, their second album called Dirty Date with the awful cover above, surprisingly, has progressive fusion in the later German style so I thought it was well worth hearing (not seeing).

No. 9 is Mike Koskinen, which is passably good but a bit too much into big band territory (unlike his 1976 well-known album Sunwebs) same with 16, Pori Big Band.  Pentti Lahti Band and Ahvenlahti on 11 are way too extemporaneous.  I mean, the point is the remainder have one or two good songs but generally they are much weaker than the pop series.  When Aaltonen does show up, on 17, even he shows up only to disappoint me. 

The only other relatively good release is the 14, the Nordic Jazz Quintet (Tolonen on guitar!), whose 1975 LP with 3 long tracks is really quite good.  I should've posted that in this blog too, like so much else good, because it's worth hearing. Two of the tracks on this Jazz-Liisa which was recorded in the same year are new and also interesting, albeit suffering of course from too much wankery.

Thanks to all those friends who helped me amass these treasures!!

I Recommend:
Taivaantemppeli (2)
KOM (4)
Jupu Group (5)
Wasama (8)
Nordjazz (14).