What is the sound of a city? Many musicians have tried to capture the sound of their hometown or their favourite city. The results are as diverse as people and their cities - that makes it so interesting. Finland's capital Helsinki is the home base for trumpet player and composer Martti Vesala and on "Helsinki Soundpost" we can see it through his eyes or rather hear it through his ears. He uses musical means to create certain atmospheres, like in the song "Smoke" that evokes scenes from a pale lit Finnish spring morning. In "Lumi" -- snow -- Martti Vesala paints a picture of Helsinki in the first snow, including some happy people in the background. After all it is the people who make a city what it is. Marrti Vesala acknowledges this with "Carvings", an intimate musical portrait following the skilled hands of a wood carver. Song by song and bar by bar he pieces together a very personal jazz photo album that makes you want to get on a plane to see and hear Helsinki yourself. For the actual sound of the album Martti Vesala doesn't feed on the Skandinavian Jazz tradition but takes the more urban American style as an inspiration. He lists the elegance of Wayne Shorter, the groove of Miles Davis and the Avantgarde-Jazz of the 60s as reference points. "Helsinki Soundpost" can be described as a concept album and even the Martti Vesala Soundpost Quintet with saxophonist Petri Puolitaival, pianist Joonas Haavisto, bass player Juho Kivivuori und drummer Ville Pynssi goes back to a concept of Vesala's. Before the album was even written he knew what would be the ideal formation: a classic Jazz quintet with tenor saxophone and trumpet. "I wanted to challenge my composition skills", Martti Vesala explains, "my aim is to keep experimenting with this formation to see how many different nuances and musical structures I can come up with for this all acoustic setting." It sounds like Helsinki might only be the staring point of a long journey.
