Trio Töykeät happily leave the serious stuff to others

New album Wake nevertheless leaves out the band's zaniest creations

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By Mari Koppinen
     
      An intensive two-week tour of Asia, taking in four countries, does not seem to have done anything to jar the relationships between the members of Trio Töykeät. Then again, nor have any of the band's many previous foreign trips.
      The banter among virtuoso pianist/composer Iiro Rantala, drummer Rami Eskelinen, and bassist Eerik Siikasaari zings back and forth as normal, even though some lesser lights might be feeling a twinge of nerves about the gig they will be starting at the Sello Hall in Espoo's Leppävaara a few minutes from now.
      "When we are gigging abroad, it's fun to keep track of how many different ways the band's name can be misspelt. And every time we do an interview, we naturally have to explain what Trio Töykeät means. Yeah, and when we tell them it's kind of like the ‘Rude Trio' or the ‘F*** You Trio', everybody's jaw just drops", the musicians chuckle over the events of the past few weeks.
     
The same laid-back sense of fun is evident in the Töykeäts' music, too. What other jazz outfit would go combining tango, Finnish humppa*, or folk music with jazz? Or would throw a drum solo rendition of [Black Sabbath's] Paranoid into the regular live set?
      All the same, not everybody is in favour of this musical horseplay. The band has on occasion been asked to get down and get serious.
      "We're only too happy to leave the serious stuff to others", Iiro Rantala retorts to the critics. "If you've got a sense of humour and fun, why put brakes on it? Humour comes naturally to us, and we express what we are in our in music. That's what an artist is supposed to do, now isn't it?"
     
Trio Töykeät has been together in the same line-up for an impressive 17 years already. Rami Eskelinen says that the secret of their long-term collaboration lies right there, in the fun they have together.
      "It's a complete gas to play with these guys. We all have the freedom to do what we think sounds good."
      The good humour also extends to Rantala's comments into the microphone between numbers. The comedy routines started way back at a gig in New Zealand.
      "A fly or something landed on the stage. I turned to Eerik and told him it really was about time he took a shower. I noticed that the audience picked up on it and laughed as much as we did", recalls Rantala.
      The remark kicked off an endless string of gags, "a cavalcade of lame jokes" that complements the music.
     
But there is a method in there, too: "It's not only the musicians who are nervous at gigs. The audience finds humour relaxing. Besides, as far as I'm concerned jazz concerts can be fun, too", says Rantala.
      The band has also got a name for slipping some off-the-wall material into their recorded work - if you consider Eskelinen's solo workout on Paranoid or a piece called Hömppä-Humppa to be on the wackier side of modern jazz.
      But on their latest CD Wake, which comprises nine of their own compositions and arrangements of a couple of standards, there is nothing of a slapstick nature. The comic side is restricted to some of the clever-clever names of pieces that are a trademark of the band - like Sir Vival or Insane in Seine, for instance. One Finnish reviewer described it as "the best and most artistic album they have produced - without being ‘artistic'".
     
So, have the band-members been listening to those requests for a more serious approach after all?
      "Yeah, we've had to give it some thought and we decided that the funny stuff comes over better at live gigs. On record they don't come across so well, particularly not pieces like that Hömppä-Humppa. People in Finland may get the joke, but it doesn't travel abroad very well. So in that sense we have dropped out the most obvious frilly stuff and concentrated on good new numbers", says Rantala.
     
Then again, Trio Töykeät have not felt any pressure to make a more "jazzlike" album. The absence of pressure stems partly from the fact that Rantala doesn't read reviews, and has not done so for five years. He is also not overly interested in what his colleagues in the jazz fraternity say.
      "I don't belong to any of the jazz gangs or cliques. And I haven't belonged since my student-days at the Sibelius Academy. The truth is out there in the hall, in the concert moment."
      The reference to the Sibelius Academy, incidentally, provides a hint to where Rantala's phenomenal keyboard technique comes from: he is classically trained and has performed as a concerto soloist with Finnish orchestras.
     
Trio Töykeät's audience-friendly take on things can be seen from the long line of people seeking autographs after the show at Sello. It is also reflected in sales of Wake: the CD went into the Finnish Top 40 at #15 in the week of its release. This is not the sort of thing that every Finnish instrumental jazz outfit can boast.
      In spite of the healthy popularity at home, the band has nevertheless switched primarily to gigging abroad. The Sello Hall concert and two at the new Helsinki jazz-club Dubrovnik (hosted jointly by Rantala and saxophonist Jukka Perkko), where Trio Töykeät are the opening act, will be their last performances in Finland this year, save for a single date in Tampere in November.
      It is not that the trio do not want to appear in front of domestic audiences. They do, but they don't want to "oversell" themselves.
      "If we were to go to, say, Oulu more than once in two years, then they'd start saying we're always hanging about up here. In that respect, Finland is a small country. Finnish gigs don't really pay the rent."
     
Gigs abroad, on the other hand, do provide a reasonable living. The recently-completed tour of Asia indicated that work in foreign parts is beginning to reap rewards. The mini-stages in shady clubs and in the corner of pizzerias have given way to dates at large concert halls. They even had fanatical followers.
      "In Korea they were screaming, and Eerik had to watch out for flying pairs of knickers. We're a youth band over there", shrugs Rantala.
      And yet the band-members have no cause quite yet to get puffed up at the warm reception, since the reason behind the reactions is a bit of a mystery.
      "In Asia you never can tell whether the audience are genuinely fired up about the music, or whether they are excited about the fact that they are at their first-ever jazz concert."
     
Taking a bead on foreign touring has guaranteed the band dates and kept it going. And that's what it all comes down to, ultimately.
      "Jazz bands come and go. That's why throughout the seventeen years the most important thing in the end is that we've managed to stick together", Rantala sums it up.
      "And that we've been able to do our own thing - pretty stubbornly, when it comes down to it."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.9.2005
     
Trio Töykeät: Wake, Blue Note (EMI) 0946-3359392-3, EUR 22.00
     
*Note: Humppa is a Finnish musical/dance phenomenon that really needs to be heard rather than described. Something like a fast foxtrot in structure, it allegedly took its name in the 1950s from the "oompah-oompah" music of bands at the Oktoberfest in Munich, and the bouncy tunes and dances remain popular even today, especially in the provinces. A fuller description can be found below.

More on this subject:
 Töykeät "Rudeness" gradually catching on abroad

Links:
  Trio Töykeät (contains samples of Wake - click Jukebox)
  Trio Töykeät (official site, with biography, tour dates & discography)
  Humppa: Wikipedia

MARI KOPPINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
mari.koppinen@hs.fi