In Tjango!’s music the instruments come so close that they almost feel like living beings. Like personalities, in conversation. Or like the warm-heartedness of old friends in an exchange of ideas that has been going on for a century or beyond. Therein you hear the long tradition and history of generations of human life.
So, although the compositions are new, they sound like they have a whole life of experience behind them. As if they had scoured just as much the genteel salons, as the jazz clubs of the Latin quarter. Alongside their classical training they are streetwise, knowing the sunset to be just as beautiful, whether viewed from the top of a rubbish heap or from a palace balcony.
Tjango!’s music was born in Helsinki, but you could also say that it is just as much from Paris and Buenos Aires as it is from Ostrobothnia. Its roots can be found in the Argentine tango and jazz manouche, but also in American root music and the Nordic folk tradition from which the band derives their original warm-hearted tone. It is just as much at home in concert halls as it is at folk music festivals and jazz clubs.
Tjango! has published two critically acclaimed albums (Tjango!, 2014 and Greens and Blues, 2017) and toured in different parts of Finland as well as in Europe. Their concerts have been described as warm-hearted, virtuosic and humorous. In the music you can hear the training and extensive experience they have, which includes symphony orchestras as well as folk ensembles and rock bands.
text: Susanna Vainiola
English translation by Outi Vellacott
