Jimi Tenor

Finland's Jimi Tenor is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and producer. Since 1994, the Finnish native's work has ranged across modern music's spectrum. Though he began recording in the 1980s, his began wedding jazz and electronic dance music with 1994's Sähkömies. A world-class baritone and tenor saxophonist and flutist, he has also embraced numerous musical strains from musical traditions of the African continent. With 1997's Intervision, he experimented with jazz-funk. 2004's Beyond the Stars was recorded with Five Corners Quintet, melding post-bop, soul, and house music. He commenced a collaborative relationship with Kabu Kabu on 2007's jazz-funk outing, Joystone. Two years later, he and Afrobeat legend Tony Allen cut Inspiration Information, wedding Afrobeat and post-millennium jazz. In 2013, Tenor and avant-jazz big band UMO released Mysterium Magnum. In 2015 he issued the prog rock-esque Electric Willow with Tenors of Kalma. In 2020 Tenor returned to electronic music with Metamorpha. Two retrospective collections, Ny, Hel, Barca and Deep Sound Learning appeared from Bureau B in 2021. The label followed by getting Tenor to record the completely solo Multiversum in 2022. Two years later the label reissued Sähkömies in celebration of its 30th anniversary. Born and raised Lassi Lehto in Finland, Tenor is a classically trained saxophonist, flutist, and pianist; he spent 12 years studying at a Finnish music institute. His stage name was derived from his childhood idol Jimmy Osmond and the tenor saxophone, his horn of choice. Prior to his solo work, Tenor fronted Jimi Tenor & His Shamans, who released four several albums on the Poko, Euros, and Bad Vugum labels (including Total Capacity of 216,5 Litres, Diktafon, and Fear of a Black Jesus between 1988 and 1992. Tenor gained the attention of influential Sheffield label Warp after releasing the full-length Europa in 1996, leading to a recording deal and reissue plans for some of Tenor's Sähkö releases. Warp featured the previously unavailable Tenor cut "Downtown" on their Blechsdottir label comp and released the 7"/CD single "Can't Stay with You Baby" a few months later, with two additional singles appearing in early 1997. In the late '80s, Tenor moved to New York, where he worked as a tourist photographer at the Empire State Building. He finally hooked up with Sähkö after receiving a copy of a solo recording by Mika Vainio (of Pan Sonic and Ø). Impressed with the label's openness to experimentalism (Sähkö had previously been known as something of the muso's minimalist techno label), Tenor sent along some tapes and landed a recording contract, releasing his debut, Sahkomies, in 1994. While in New York he also recorded with Khan/4E's Can Oral (under the name Bizz O.D.), releasing the "Traffic" single on Ozon in 1995. Tenor returned to Finland in 1995 to film a documentary of Sähkö (funded, oddly enough, by a government grant) and has remained there since, releasing Europa in 1996 and securing licensing and recording arrangements with Warp. The full-length Intervision was released in 1997, followed two years later by Organism. After the release of Out of Nowhere in 2000, Tenor and Sähkö parted ways with Warp. The saxophonist collaborated with his musical instrument-designing partner Matti Knaapi, drummer Edward Vesala, DJ/producer Jimi Sumen, and harpist Iro Haarla, on the experimental album City of Women, cut at Vesala's home studio. Unfortunately, Vesala died before it was released. Tenor's sixth full-length, Utopian Dream, an overtly solo electronics record, still received import distribution. Tenor was performing with a large band for 2004's Beyond the Stars, distributed widely through Kitty-Yo, his backing unit Kabu Kabu appeared on 2007's Joystone. The combination also appeared on 2009's 4th Dimension. In 2010, Tenor and Afrobeat drum legend Tony Allen collaborated on a volume in Strut's excellent Inspiration Information series. Ifetune, a collaboration with Ethiopian percussionist Abdissa "Mamba" Assefa, appeared in 2011. In February of 2012, the first exhibition of Tenor's photographs was shown at the Kingi Kongi Gallery in Helsinki, followed by his first feature film, Sähkö, which debuted in Berlin. He capped the eventful year by releasing The Mystery of Aether with Kabu Kabu for Kindred Spirits. Tenor recorded the experimental Dub of Doom with Icelandic reggae band Hjálmar in 2013, as well as the experimental Exocosmos with Lassi Lehto's global Imposter Orchestra. He and Nicole Willis co-produced Finnish band Haunted by Hallucinations' self-titled debut album, and he played on Masterstone by Lehto's Flat Earth Society. His long association with vanguard saxophonist Kalle Kalima and drummer Joonas Rippa in the Tenors of Kalma resulted in the album Electric Willow, which was issued by Enja's Yellowbird imprint in 2015, the same year as his collaboration with UMO Jazz Orchestra on the 12-track Mysterium Magnum from Herakles. The following year, the label released his full-length spiritual jazz-cum-Afrobeat set Saxentric. Two collaborative EPs were issued in 2017, first, Big Fantasy (For Me) with Nicole Willis and Jonathan Maron in March, followed by Sleepover with Freestyle Man in November. In 2018, Tenor issued Order of Nothingness, an exercise in global soul-jazz and funk and played a classifiable gig with Tony Allen's band at the OTO Live Series, issued as an album by Moog Recordings. In 2019, City of Women, Vol. 2 with Vesala, Haarla, Sumen, and Knaapi was issued, consisting of material cut in 2000. In early 2020, Tenor issued Metamorpha on BubbleTease Communications. Written and recorded with bassist/house music producer Maurice Fulton, the album marked a solid return to dance music with jazzy overtones; all instruments were performed by the duo. In March, Bureau B issued the double-length compilation Ny, Hel, Barca, that collected 20 tracks from Tenor's first six albums between 1994 and 2001. Their association continued with the release of Deep Sound Learning, a collection of rarities two months later. Enthralled by how the artist conjured up space music with just a synthesizer, flute, and saxophone, Bureau B ultimately invited him to record an album of fresh material using this basic set-up. Tenor accepted and almost immediately began recording in his Helsinki studio. He turned in 20 tracks based on drum machine beats and synthesizer loops, appended by reeds, winds, and samples, moving across genres from bedroom jazz to deviant techno. Bureau B released the set as Multiversum in 2022. According to Tenor, the album was meant as a love letter to the D.I.Y. spirit of electronic music. Two years later, the label reissued Sähkömies in celebration of its 30th anniversary.
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