The jazz legend silenced the Finnish youth: “It’s a huge experience just to be in the same space”

“Is it no tenor here,” wonders the American holding his tenor saxophone Joe Lovano and creates a laugh that breaks the silence.

It’s a March Saturday in the Musiikkitalo practice class. Thirty students of the jazz department of the Sibelius Academy have listened to Lovano talk about the different stages of his long career for almost an hour and a half, and none of them have yet asked anything about the mouthpiece of his Italian instrument.

No one! It seems to amuse Lovano a little.

Sitting at the front of the full class is a fourth-year saxophone student Jimi Ahlroos is finally encouraged by the three-word question and gets to hear what he had already dug up. Instead of metal or hard rubber, Lovano’s mouthpiece is exceptionally made of wood, hard and durable grenadilla, or African rosewood.

The rarer material may be part of what separates Lovano from many other tenor saxophonists specializing in jazz.

Lovano plays with a recognizable sound. Because he fills the class with a master class twice, at the beginning alone and at the end with the drummer-professor Jukkis Uotilan with.

At least tenor saxophonist Ahlroos is equally impressed by the natural presence and spirituality of the world-famous Lovano.

“Music is much more than mathematics or technical skill, at best it is great humanity. And this was conveyed clearly in his speeches,” Ahlroos says after the master class.

Second year student, alto saxophonist Emil Dobosiewicz is just as impressed, if not more so.

“As an admirer, it was a huge experience to just be in the same space and get a little feel for the person. It inspires, inspires.”

Savoy Joe Lovano, 73, who also performed at Jazzfest, was not at a teaching gig for the first time. He already taught a two-day course at the jazz department of the Sibelius Academy in February 1992. Since 2001, he has been teaching regularly at the famous Berklee School of Music in Boston, from which he graduated as a bachelor in his twenties.

Or graduated and graduated. The speech of Lovano, who was awarded an honorary doctorate at the same institution, clearly conveys the fact that a jazz musician who is searching for his own voice, who appreciates throwing himself off and the momentary, is never ready.

Ahlroos, who made one album of his own, grasps the idea: “True, this is a life-long journey where the goal shifts all the time. I guess you could put it in the bag when it’s done.”

Reflecting on the never-ending journey can both comfort and encourage students in their twenties, who listen to the quietly speaking Lovano with concentration and without comment.

The master class was mainly a breath-taking lecture about the musicians that Lovano has heard and met during his more than fifty professional years.

Indeed he mercifully omits to highlight where he was as a beginner around the same age: touring Europe as a clarinetist Woody Hermanin with a big orchestra, in its saxophone sections. Lovano also went to Finland with Herman for the first time in February 1976 and had solos in Tampere, Turku and Helsinki, in the former hotel Hesperia night club.

Only fifteen-year-old drummer Jukkis Uotila, who later became one of the key influencers of Finnish jazz education, had managed to get to the same Hesperia Saturday night gig.

Thinking about the students, he would now be more interested in how Lovano, who grew up in the industrial city of Cleveland, Ohio, initially caught his own distinctive tenor sound, felt that he had found something of his own. Did it happen unknowingly, influenced by others, or consciously seeking or imitating some role model?

Yes and no, summarizes Lovano and quotes the pianist Hank Joneswho initially thought it was better to sound like something than nothing. However, Lovano’s biggest early influence and coach was his own father, who is of Italian descent Tony ”Big T” Lovano.

He was a barber by day and an enthusiastic tenor saxophonist by night, who had a large record collection and three brothers who also played jazz, saxophones and trumpet as a hobby. Joseph Salvatore Lovano, who got his first tenor at the age of 12, absorbed the history of jazz up to that point from them.

That’s why Lovano was a little older than his age when he was younger, and then not quite young enough when he was a little older. He didn’t get his first studio album out until he was 35 years old. The start of an international solo career still took years.

So you shouldn’t rush, but also don’t just stick to your own company, is Lovano’s lesson for young jazz musicians.

“Of course, each generation has its own influences and its own contemporaries who inspire each other. Still, I encourage you: get to know each other and mix, learn from each other. Living with jazz has never been easy, even if you live for jazz.”

“But hey, would you like to play something at the end?