Blog | New 4 is a new band, but its lineup is written in the stars

“Already at the first gig, the band sounds mature and original”, writes Katri Kallionpää.

Beautiful and longing. The name of the song is Cold Spring, cold spring, but its painterly melancholy is perfect for the warm evening of the first Sunday in November at Kallion’s Tenho, where New 4 is played by a pianist Toomas Keski-Säntin pieces.

Toomas Keski-Säntti (left), Joonas Tuuri, Tomi Nikku and Jonne Taavitsainen are New 4, which will release its first album in December. Picture: Katri Kallionpää HS

As the name suggests, the quartet is brand new, but its members in their thirties are familiar with so many bands that the line-up could be written in the stars. Maybe it is, because musicians are the cream of their generation. These four seem to play in a total of more than 30 bands, some of them the same.

Trumpeter Tomi Nikku leads his own quintet, bassist Joonas Tuuri his quartet and a drummer Jonne Taavitsainen to the trio. Keski-Säntti is known, among other things, as the keyboardist of the band OK:KO.

They have reportedly gathered for a couple of years in a practice camp to play and develop their own compositions.

Now the collective is on stage for the first time, and it’s not even a record release gig, but the release date. Direction Zero will appear in early December.

However, New 4 is not just a jamming gang, as the band intends to head towards the gigs with determination.

It is good news!

Already at the first gig – or in other words at the first gig – the band sounds mature and original. It has its own sound. We are at the core of modern jazz, but in a new and fresh way.

The New 4 band is characterized by virtuosity, which is at its best in the witty dialogues between Niku and Keski-Sänti. At the same time, the music is unforced and expressive. It also has a picturesqueness and quiet meditation. It gives space to emotions.

Let’s take Niku’s song for example Arms is armswhich was inspired by by Amanda Gorman from the poem of the same name.

You remember Gorman, that black poet and activist who at the age of 22 appeared before the President of the United States Joe Biden at the inauguration in January 2021.

Nikku read the first stanza of the poem: We lay down our arms, so we can reach out our arms to one another . Freely translated We put down our weapons so we can reach out to each other.

The hymn-like composition ends with Tuuri’s bass outro, which goes on and on as persistent as hope.

That’s exactly what we, the listeners gathered in Tenho, need on this Sunday after Memorial Day, when the number of dead on Earth is increasing all the time, too much and in the wrong way.

of the New 4 band the new album will be released at the beginning of December.

However, there is no CD or vinyl coming out. The album will be released only on the streaming service.

It’s a bummer. It’s been nice to buy a record at release gigs and at the same time get to thank the musicians personally.

After the gig, I’ll ask the reason for the decision. Tuuri justifies the matter by saying that making a physical record costs money, and the records don’t always sell. “There are already too many of them in the basement,” he laughs.

Understandable, but how can you support musicians when in Finland you don’t even put your hat around at free concerts, as is often the custom in Berlin?

The matter seems to have bothered musicians as well. Nikku joked on the stage that you can play the album over and over on the streaming service for the night, so the musician might get some money from it.