At Belmont Jazz Club (Live - Remastered) Eero Koivistoinen Quartet

• 1 Meat & Potatoes (Live) 07:51
• 2 God Bless the Child (Live) 12:29
• 3 Stress (Live) 07:27
• 4 Yksi ruusu on kasvanut laaksossa (Live) 13:14
• Total Runtime 41:01

Info for At Belmont Jazz Club (Live - Remastered)

Eero Koivistoinen Quartet's rare live album from 1978 reissued for the first time in nearly half a century via Svart Records.

Eero Koivistoinen is one of the all-time greats in Finnish jazz and saxophone, arrived in the Finnish jazz scene in the mid-60s. Ever since, he has been one of the most distinguished and trusted jazz musicians in Finland. He is known for his versatility and creativeness, his tastes ranging from pithy jazz solos to large-scale orchestral works. In addition to the band leader and saxophonist Koivistoinen, the line-up of Eero Koivistoinen Quartet included the accomplished musicians Pekka Sarmanto (bass), Reiska Laine (drums) and Vladimir Shafranov (piano), and the same line-up remained active for the next two years. They released the legendary album Labyrinth on Love Records in June 1977, which is a definite cornerstone of Finnish Jazz.

The group also attracted the interest of the international tobacco company Philip Morris, which began to sponsor the quartet's tours and clubs. One of these events took place at Pori Jazz in July 1977, where the band's venue was named after Belmont, a brand of cigarettes manufactured by the company. The Eero Koivistoinen Quartet was the house band of the Belmont Jazz Club at Pori's Puistokeskus, and its concerts were recorded by the group's sound engineer Matti Sarapaltio. The following year, Mikko Kuoppamäki and Koivistoinen compiled a live album At Belmont Jazz Club from recordings of four days of performances. The album, mixed by Pekka Nurmikallio at the renowned Microvox studio, was sent by the band's frontman to Love Records, who released it in April 1978.

At Belmont Jazz Club features live versions of two songs from the Labyrinth album. Stress, composed by Koivistoinen, and his arrangement of the Finnish folk song Yksi ruusu on kasvanut laaksossa, have been given a new form in a concert setting. In addition to these, the album also includes the classic Billie Holiday song God Bless the Child, and Meat & Potatoes, composed by Koivistoinen, the studio version of which can be found on the 40th anniversary edition of Labyrinth, released by Svart Records in 2017. The price of the original vinyl release by Love Records has risen to several hundred euros over the years, so Svart Records is now easing the pain of many music lovers by releasing Eero Koivistoinen Quartet's At Belmont Jazz Club in September 2025 for the first time digitally and remastered.

Eero Koivistoinen, tenor saxophone
Vladimir Shafranov, piano
Pekka Sarmanto, double bass
Reiska Laine, drums

Digitally remastered

Eero Koivistoinen
(b. 1946), one of the most famous Finnish jazzmusicians and saxophonists of all time, stepped into the field of jazz music in the middle of 1960's. Since then he has been one of the most trusted and distinguished jazzmusicians in Finland. He is known from his versatility and creativity and his skills strech from powerful jazzsolos to extensive compositions for orchestras.

Koivistoinen became interested in music at a young age and started to take classical violin lessons. When he was 16-years-old he started to play alto saxophone, later also tenor and soprano saxophones, and the violin was left aside. Koivistoinen was already a familiar face in the jazz scene of Helsinki when he was studying saxophone and composing in Sibelius Academy in his 20's.

The first band for Koivistoinen was a trio formed with drummer Edward Vesala and bassist Pekka Sarmanto. This trio was one of the first groups that tried out the possibilities of avantgardism and free jazz in Finland. In 1967 Koivistoinen's skills were awarded as the young Finnish Jazz Federation decided to give the first Yrjö, Georgie, Award in the history to Koivistoinen and so was Koivistoinen chosen as the Jazzmusician of the Year. In 1969 Koivistoinen continued winning as he came to the first place in the Montreaux Jazz Band Competition in Switzerland with his quartet. This prize has been seen as the first international award ever given to Finnish jazz and thanks to this, Koivistoinen's quartet got the opportunity to perform also at the Newport Jazz Festival in United States.

In the beginning of 1970's Koivistoinen developped his composing skills by studying a semester at the Sibelius Academy and three semesters in the prestigious Berlee College of Music in Boston, U.S.. In 1981 Koivistoinen won the arranger award of the European Broadcasting Union in the Nording competition held in Jersey with his work "Ultima Thule" and in 1983 the record company Pro Records that Koivistoinen had founded in the beginning of 1980s released an album with the same name. In 1987 he also won the big band composing competition of the Foundation for the Promotion of Finnish Music with his work "Kukonpesä".

UMO Jazz Orchestra has been an important instrument for Koivistoinen since it's establishment in 1975. Already the first release of the big band, Our Latin Friends (Konserttikeskus 1976) included compositions by the saxophonist and Koivistoinen might be today the most recorded composer by UMO Jazz Orchestra. In the middle of the 1990's Koivistoinen started to compose more than play the saxophone and he also worked as the artistic leader of UMO in 1996-1998. As a conductor and a groupleader he is highly appreciated both here in Finland and abroad, e.g. in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, South America, Estonia and Lithuania.

Besides his many other projects, Koivistoinen has recently showed a great interest towards African music and in 1998 he released an album, Eero Koivistoinen and Senegalese Drums, with the Senegalese musicians. At the same time Koivistoinen has however interpreted also Finnish folksongs as stylish jazzversions: in 2002 Silence Records released Koivistoinen's album Utu, that consisted of traditional Finnish folk songs arranged for a jazzquartet and in 2003 Silence Records released an album Suomalainen where vocalist Johanna Iivanainen sang music arranged by Koivistoinen and new compositions of the saxophonist. In 2007 the band of Iivanainen and Koivistoinen released another album Lennosta kii! (Backstage Alliance) which is also a combination of Finnish popular music and Koivistoinen's jazzcompositions.

Besides his own projects and UMO, Koivistoinen has composed lots of music for television, films and radio plays. Radio symphony orchestra ordered him a orchestra series based on the music of pianist Thelonious Monk that was realised in 2003 carrying the name Round About Monk. Koivistoinen has had time to play as a sideman and a visitor as well. One of these visits have been with one of the most successful acoustic groovejazzbands in Finland recently, with The Five Corners Quintet.

This album contains no booklet.