Getting to Know Copenhagen

Hello!

The airliners don’t make bass player’s lives very easy. When I moved to Copenhagen from Finland just before christmas I had so much stuff that I couldn’t even think of carrying my double bass with me. As you may know, it is a very cumbersome instrument and there are many stories about bass players, who either didn’t get pass the check-in and sometimes even if they did get to the flight they may find their instrument in million pieces when they finally open the flight case. So I was worried as usually.

I did another trip to Finland to pick up the bass, and that time I got it with me. Altough it did take a lot of convincing at the check-in desk and a couple of hundred spent euros. One other thing that many of the bass players experience are the comments when you are carrying the flight-case around: “Do you have a corpse inside?”, “You should’ve picked the flute instead”, or my favorite: “Dad! What’s that big instrument? -That my boy, is a cello.”

Jazz life here in copenhagen has been quite nice and active. I got a nice rehearsal room called Øret (the Ear). I’ve been learning some standards and playing twice a week in jam sessions. If you are in Copenhagen and are into jazz, there are lot’s of stuff happening every week. Now there is of course the Winter Jazz festival, but there are also the Christiania’s jazz club at wednesdays and fridays, Blågårdsapoteket at mondays, Temple Bar or La Fontaine at sundays.

Last tuesday was a really nice evening at La Fontaine. It was a support event for live music, and there was a lot (see the pic) of jazz musicians there. There was a jam beginning with a very nice hammond/guitar/drums – trio led by Kjeld Lauritsen. Later in the session Chris Potter took the stand with the sax. He really was on fire playing the solos. I have to borrow Håvards term describing the jazz musician playing super fast licks with furious emotions: he truly posessed the “Thunder Chops”! The atmosphere was really hot. And what could top that really fast swinging stuff… Yeah. Next up was the Denmarks own Jazz Kamikaze with a funky version of Smells Like Teen Spirit…

Tomorrow I’ll take the train to Gothenburg to meet up with Håvard, Fredrik and Joona. We’re going to rehearse for the upcoming album and maaaaaybe even go fishing!

Fazioli Party

Yesterday I was at a very nice party. A recording studio in Gothenburg, Studio Epidemin, had a celebration for their new grand piano! The old Steinway has to make room for a beautiful, exclusive Fazioli from Italy. Oh my god what an instrument! Beautifully balanced, wonderful sound and dynamics I’ve hardly ever experienced! The studio was packed with Gothenburg’s pianists and musicians, taking turns in playing the beauty and sipping the champagne!

I’m very excited since I will be recording in that studio soon with the flute/saxophone player Anders Hagberg, and a few weeks later it is time for the Jazz and Fly Fishing/Tight Lines Quartet album recording in that same studio. I can’t wait!

Jes!

Just got word that I´m nominated for the Norwegian grammy – called “Spellemannsprisen” for my album with Håvard Stubø Quartet  “Way Up (Way Down)”

Good times!

Midwinter Madness

The fishing madness gets worse this time of the year. All you can do is tie flies, watch fishing movies, plan fishing trips etc.

One of the worst things that can happen a flyfisherman are the nightmares. You know, when you dream of a fishing trip: rising big trout, you open the fly box and find it empty. No flies at all. Nothing. You try to tie a fly, but you can’t find the material. It gets dark. Fish stop rising. Panic. Finally you wake up sweatty and realize it was a nightmare. The unconscious mind knows when the fly boxes need to be filled. So I made a new year’s promise: I will tie at least two flies per day in average. So far so good, I think I’ve tied nearly a hundred flies this year. I’m sleeping better, too.

One good thing with this time of the year is all the glittering Christmas decorations. They are cheap and excellent material for fly tying. Big streamers, nymph backs, dubbing… Now that all the shops want to get rid of that stuff it’s even cheaper and I’ve bought lots and lots!

Bodybuilding

Yes!

We´re  working hard on the plans for 2010/2011 at the moment.

Jazzwise, we have several interesting projects going on. Firstly, the recording of our first full-length album is coming up pretty soon. We´ve changed the reportoire a bit, and added some strong, new tunes by Fred and J-man. We´re also planning some tours at the moment – more on that later.

Fishingwise, we´re planning a trip to the spectacular lower Ransarån in early June. This river has some of the best road-near sightfishing for arctic char and brown trout in Scandinavia, and being a tailwater, the fishing starts early for a Lapland water, sometimes as early as late March (probably not this year, though – it´s been too damn cold).  We´re also planning a return to the beautiful Finnish koskis in June, and I´m really looking forward to that one – the style of fishing there is different from anything I´ve tried before: fast pocket-waters with surprisingly big trout – fishing with tiny dries in the middle of the night.  We´re also planning a serious wilderness trip somewhere above the arctic circle this summer. Only problem is that there are so many exciting waters to visit, and so little time… Life is definitely too short – and the sub-arctic summers are definitely way too short!

I´ve also joined a gym recently. Twice a week, you´ll find me sweating my ass off in a crammed, smelly bunker – and paying good money for it, too! The civilized world is a strange place…

Anyway – 2010 and 2011 is gonna be exciting, and we´ll keep you guys posted!

Catch you later -

H.

2010

I just finnished my brittish-influenced breakfest. Eggs, bacon… A bit too much coffe on top of that makes my hands a bit shaky. It is very cold now, around minus 15 (celsius) and the ice is thick on all the lakes around Gothenburg. Even the ocean is covered by a white lid in big areas. Today I´m going for a short ice fishing trip! Or maybe some skiing, lets see! It is actually the coldest winter (so far) since 1987 and I guess the we all, for a while, can pretend like the climate problems doesn’t really exist. But unfortunately they do! Enough of that right now (but lets do something about it!)

But now, today, this minute, it is time to check out our summary of the year 2009 and what really happend. Highlights and “not highlights” are mixed in an almost chronological order. Take a look and enjoy! Feel free to vote for the best photo in this photo-summary, the picture that in some way appeals to you. Lets make the year 2010 the best year so far! Happy 2010!

Christmas

Aaaaahh, finally it’s christmas again. Do I like it? Do you like it? Well, both yes and no I guess. I feel that this religious day gets a little bit more hectic every year. This year, the very christmas eve 2009, I decided to skip the family, girlfriend and so on – instead me and David (a perch freak) planned to go 1000 kilometers north with lots of lemonade (!) and food. It sounded like a brilliant idea a couple of months ago. Nothing could go wrong! Yesterday my friend told me that he couldn’t make it anymore. There were some different reasons. Now we are going to my mothers house (she is not at home), 20 kilometers outside the town. Exiting? Very. While the family, my girlfriend and all the other people I know are having a great time, two idiots will go to a lonely house close to Gothenburg. Exiting? Very. Of course, it could have been worse, we are still alive and so on. One big issue though – the ice is here. We can’t fish. Not with our dear fly rods anyway. Maybe the next blog will have the name “ice fishing”. Lets see about that! But we can and will listen to nice music! No christmas tunes allowed, only music!

Last week we had some cosy evenings doing the traditional christmas stuff. For example me, Ingrid (Idas friend) and Ida made a very sweet gingerbread house. Perhaps we overdid it a bit…

By the way, our rehearsal weekend was super nice. The obvious highlight was our late meeting when we decided how to work with the band next year. Håvard was on fire and Joonas bottle with spiced wine was empty. Nice things will happen 2010! Will tell you more about that and our weekend in Gothenburg in a couple of days. But now, to all of you from all of us (?) – I/ we wish you a merry christmas and a chilly time. Håvard, Joona and Tapani do the same. I Can here their voices in my head, slowly whispering (in a unison scary choir) : MERRY CHRISTMAS   M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S    M  E  R  R  Y      C  R  I   S   T   M…

Freedom Jazz Dance

It’s been a long time since I posted to the JFF blog and the reason for that is that I needed to finish my school that is the Helsinki University of Technology. The process of making the thesis took me one whole year, and after finally returning the small black book I was a bit burn out. I even began to look a little bit like a mad scientist as you can see from the before/after pic. Fredrik finally pushed me to write something of what has been going on for past months after the unforgettable JFF tour.

The Thesis was about Ballistocardiographic measurement chair which is a device that measures hearts function by measuring reaction forces caused by the pumping of the heart according to Newton’s 3rd law. To say the same in more understandable way, I will cite my little sister who asked me few months ago: “Are you still working on the thing that measures your heart rate from your ass?” As the device measures the heart’s pumping force with sensors under a chair while subject is sitting on it, I have to say that it is kind of an accurate descritption of the device.

I was in Barcelona for a one week holiday and it really hit the spot! It was over 25°C many of the days and the seafood dishes really got me inspired. One of the days we went to beautiful Cadaqués, where we saw a lot of big fish just from the docks as you can see in the pic. And of course didn’t have any equipement to fish with. Some of the fish was estimated over 3kg’s and chasing the smaller 1 kg fish away! Needless to say I soon felt the urge to make a few casts even with spinning rod. We went to buy one from a local fihing store, but being in Spain, the store was of course having a siesta, so we had to helplessly wach those big fish in crystal clear water. When we finally got one it was already stormy weather, but me and Johanna did a few casts anyways, without luck…

Now that I’m free from any institutions for once in 21 years, I’ve been really enjoying stuff, such as preparing fish meals such as marinara soup, fried flatfish with lime-butter and prawns with garlic. I also moved to Copenhagen from Helsinki. Danish language seems at the moment impossible and im still trying to pronounce the name of the street where we live right. I was out socializing last nite with the jazz musicians from Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium and I was introduced to the danish tradition of snaps drinking. So I’m a bit tired, but I feel that tomorrow will be freedom jazz dance all over again.

Session ahead!

We are soon having a rehearsal/planning weekend in Gothenburg. The studio session for the album recording has been booked for spring 2010 and now we will be working on some new tunes. I’ve just finished a new tune in 12/8, called Kiruna Grand Central (a strange incident happened to me once at the Kiruna Station in Northern Sweden. Fredrik will possibly write about it later on the blog.). Anyway, it will be nice to hear our drummer Fredrik getting crazy on that tune. The problem is that he only can count to nine, which might cause some strange grooves…

The band has not met since the tour last summer, and we will celebrate the Tight Lines Quartet reunion with my home-brewed “glög”, a Christmas drink that is served warm with ginger bread. This year I made it extra strong to please our Norwegian friend Håvard.

Caddis goodies

Now that winter is here it’s time to spend some dark evenings tying flies for next summer. Here are some of my favorite patterns for the caddis-eating trout in Finland. You won’t fail with these ones!

Silicon pupa

• Hook: short, curved #14-16
• Body: anron wrapped around a needle with clear silicone (then dried).
• Back: black rubber (nymph back or similar)
• Hackle (optional): brown hen
• Thorax: hare’s ear
• Wing buds: black raffia
• Antennas: mallard or similar

Silicon emergent pupa

• Hook: short, curved #14-16
• Body: anron wrapped around a needle with clear silicone (then dried).
• Thorax: hare’s ear, well brushed
• Wing: Gray or white polypropylen or deer hair

Caddis pupa

• Hook: curved #10-14
• Back: clear or olive rubber back, colored black in the front
• ribbing: thin (0.15) nylon line
• body: caddis green dubbing
• wing buds: black chenille
• thorax: hare’s ear
• antennas: black fly tying thread

Captain Gold Hook

Gold heads are often deadly for trout, but exactly this pattern has been the number one of my gold head patterns. One rainy fishing trip a few years ago I got two trouts over 2 kilos and one weighting 1,9 on this pattern, and lost one of the biggest graylings in my life…

• Hook: Curved gold colored hook #10-14
• Head: gold head
• rib: thin gold wire
• body: cream fly rite or antron
• thorax: dark brown hare dubbing