{"id":5464,"date":"2022-12-27T22:30:34","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T04:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=5464"},"modified":"2022-12-27T22:30:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T04:30:39","slug":"juss-reijonen-three-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/juss-reijonen-three-seconds\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Jussi Reijonen&#8217;s &#8216;Three Seconds | Kolme Toista&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>&#8220;From the snowy, windswept peaks of Lapland to the desert of the Empty Quarter, Three Seconds | Kolme Toista is an adventure unlike any other!&#8221;<\/em> Okay, that\u2019s not Jussi Reijonen\u2019s stated program behind\u00a0<em>Three Seconds <\/em>|<em> Kolme Toista<\/em>\u00a0(Challenge Records, 2022), which is at once more ambitious and more personal. Yet the music conceived by the Boston-based guitarist and oud player is painted on an epic scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reijonen was born in a town just south of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland. Before coming to the U.S., he grew up in Jordan, Tanzania, Oman, and Lebanon. The three \u201cseconds,\u201d a literal translation from the Finnish idiom meaning \u201cothers,\u201d represent Reijonen\u2019s conditional sense of cultural identity, the difficulties that caused for him and his family, and finally, the reconciliation of the two threads that emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper fourthree\" style=\"width:420px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_shmZt37mFcM\"><div id=\"lyte_shmZt37mFcM\" data-src=\"\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/shmZt37mFcM\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/shmZt37mFcM\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/shmZt37mFcM\/0.jpg?resize=420%2C295&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"YouTube video thumbnail\" width=\"420\" height=\"295\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:420px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a hero\u2019s journey, more Hulk than Hegel, that\u2019s announced in \u201cThe Veil\u201d by a bardic strummed guitar chord. Naseem Alatrash introduces a lonely theme that becomes a Viking horn call when taken up by the far-away brass choir of Jason Palmer\u2019s trumpet and Bulut G\u00fclen\u2019s muscular trombone. Pounding downbeats shift the location to the southeast for Alatrash and violinist Laith Sidiq\u2019s twining, microtonal strings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alatrash\u2019s mournful taqsim ushers in \u201cTransient,\u201d a quiet nocturne under the immensity of the desert sky that becomes a kind of percussion concerto for Vancil Cooper and Keita Ogawa. A slow movement at the center of the album\u2019s arch structure, \u201cThe Weaver, Every So Often Shifting The Sands Beneath Her,\u201d shifts the action to an interior scene for twining horn solos over a balmy head-nod tempo.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper fourthree\" style=\"width:420px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_zQ8XV-CKars\"><div id=\"lyte_zQ8XV-CKars\" data-src=\"\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/zQ8XV-CKars\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/zQ8XV-CKars\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/zQ8XV-CKars\/0.jpg?resize=420%2C295&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"YouTube video thumbnail\" width=\"420\" height=\"295\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:420px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>The guitar riff from \u201cThe Veil,\u201d now becalmed under a slinky frame-drum beat, is shattered by the full band slamming into a roaring collective improv in 7 powered by Kyle Miles\u2019 deep bass and thudding drums from Cooper. The 10-minute-long \u201cMedian,\u201d which begins with the Viking horn call, closes the journey with Palmer\u2019s nostalgic trumpet, a consolatory\u2014or maybe it\u2019s elegiac\u2014denouement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a classic three-act screenplay structure, and there\u2019s real drama in the way the musical episodes are paced and sequenced. It\u2019s filmic in the best sense of the word. Roll credits and fade to black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Three Seconds <\/em>|<em> Kolme Toista<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<strong><em> is now available on Challenge Records. It can be purchased <a href=\"https:\/\/challengerecords.com\/products\/16590156903952\/three-seconds-kolme-toista\">in our Amazon affiliate store.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tracklist: 1. The Veil; 2. Transient; 3. The Weaver, Every So Often Shifting The Sands Beneath Her; 4. Verso; 5. Median.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Personnel: Jussi Reijonen (fretless and fretted electric guitars, classical guitar, oud), Jason Palmer (trumpet, flugelhorn), Bulut G\u00fclen (trombone), Layth Sidiq (violin), Naseem Alatrash (cello), Utar Artun (piano), Kyle Miles (acoustic and fretless basses), Vancil Cooper (drums), Keita Ogawa (percussion).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Photo credit: Luis Zavaleta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;From the snowy, windswept peaks of Lapland to the desert of the Empty Quarter, Three Seconds | Kolme Toista is an adventure unlike any other!&#8221; Okay, that\u2019s not Jussi Reijonen\u2019s stated program behind\u00a0Three Seconds | Kolme Toista\u00a0(Challenge Records, 2022), which is at once more ambitious and more personal. Yet the music conceived by the Boston-based [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":19,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/JussiReijonen_Oud_ByLuisZavaleta_21.jpg?fit=750%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peRkRR-1q8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3456,"url":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/hof-cage-433\/","url_meta":{"origin":5464,"position":0},"title":"2021 PostGenre Hall of Fame Inductee: John Cage\u2019s \u201c4&#8217;33&#8243;&#8221;","author":"Rob Shepherd","date":"November 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"What is silence? 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