Meet me under the polar lights

"Land Of The Midnight Sun" - the song that flowed naturally from Tuija Komi's pen one day has not only become the title track of her latest album, it has also become the program as "Music From The Land Of The Midnight Sun". Just like this hymn to her native Finland, the new program "Meet Me Under The Polar Lights" illustrates the exceptional position of the singer, who has lived in Germany for many years: Komi enriches classical jazz singing with themes, lyrics and sounds of her Nordic origins like no other. When her fifth album ends with the 1940s song "If I Had My Life To Live Over", it is also an autobiographical punchline. Tuija Komi was not born to be a jazz singer in her native Karelia, but she courageously chose it for herself.
She courageously conquered it step by step. As courageously as she now selects and interprets her songs. She dares to tackle big pop anthems such as "You Make Me Feel Brandnew" by Simply Red or "Thank You For The Music" by Abba, doesn't shy away from comparisons with Carole King on "It's Too Late" or Nina Simone on "Feeling Good", and also cuts a dazzling figure on ballads such as "Gabriella's Song" from the Swedish film hit "Like Heaven". But the biggest
successful venture, her unique selling point remains the expansion of the jazz idiom
through Finnish. Whether her own lyrics, sometimes in English as in "Woman's Life Cycle", mostly in Finnish, as in "Mä haluun laulaa - I want to sing" or "Yksinäinen nainen - The lonely
Woman" or "Veri's Tale"; whether adaptations from the entire repertoire of Finnish music (from the children's song "Nuuskamuikkusen Nappi" to film music, Finnish tango or the 60s pop of Kaj Chydenius to the self-texted piece by the world-famous Finnish rock band The Rasmus); or courageous vocalizations of classical pieces by the Finnish national composer Jean Sibelius - thanks to her enormously variable vocal expressiveness, the bundle of energy Tuija Komi always sweeps aside all obstacles in this cultural transfer of a special kind. And takes her
audience on a musical journey to the far north with her confident presentation, interspersed with many stories and Nordic humor. The audience learns about her love for the Moomins - the internationally renowned children's book characters by Finnish author Tove Jansson - and for good children's songs. That "Kuusi" means spruce in Finnish and that the song of the same name touches her like no other by Sibelius. Or in "Veri's Tale" that freedom can also become a prison.
can also become a prison. Entertainment with depth, that also defines Komi's vocal artistry. Not only does she have an enormous range from the lowest to the highest registers. In master classes with greats such as Theo Bleckmann, Kurt Elling, Nancy Marano and the New York Voices, but above all as a student of jazz legend Sheila Jordan, Tuija Komi has acquired everything a perfect jazz singer needs. She has soul, can scat like the devil, loves
loves to improvise and makes the most of the whole vocal spectrum, including joiking, the special singing of the Sami people from Lapland. "A real Finnish jazz diva", as the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote. But the music in particular is also teamwork. Komi has found the perfect companions for her mission and assembled them into a real working band. Peter
Cudek on bass and Martin Kolb on drums provide the official and variable rhythmic foundation, while the grandiose pianist Stephan Weiser also writes the compelling arrangements. Tuija Komi and her band are quite simply "The Finest Finnish in Jazz".