Finnish vocalist Emma Salokoski reached the national albums chart’s upper tier in the mid-2000s as leader of the Emma Salokoski Ensemble while maintaining affiliations with both Quintessence and Q-Continuum. Her work encompasses jazz, bossa nova, soul, and pop idioms. Born October 28, 1976, in Helsinki, she played viola between the ages of eleven and eighteen, then moved to Sweden to train in musical theater at Kulturama in Stockholm. Appearances in Rent and Les Miserables preceded her return to formal studies, this time centered on jazz. She co-established the jazz-funk band Quintessence in 1999; the group issued its first recording, the White Light EP, in 2001 and followed with the full-length Talk Less Listen More on Texicalli Records in 2002 and the album 5 AM in 2004. Parallel to those activities, Salokoski made her initial frontwoman recording with the Puutarhassa EP in 2003 on the same label. Originally assembled in 2000 around Salokoski, guitarist Mikko Kosonen, and bassist Lauri Porra, the Emma Salokoski Trio later added keyboardist Tuomo Prättälä and percussionist Marko Timonen, adopted the name Emma Salokoski Ensemble, and released its debut album Kaksi Mannerta in 2005. Rooted in bossa nova yet colored by a Finnish perspective, the record entered the Top Five on the Finnish albums chart. Its successor, Veden Alla, advanced to number two in 2008. Salokoski also belongs to the funk outfit Q-Continuum, whose Texicalli debut Organ Kane’s Quintessential Grooves appeared in 2004 and whose follow-up, Q-Continuum Presents: This Is the Marienhof, surfaced in 2006.
