Timo Lassy

Saxophonist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Timo Lassy occupies a central place among Finland’s jazz figures. Recognized for a thick, rounded yet incisive sound, he helped establish Helsinki’s internationally celebrated Five Corners Quintet and performs with both the Jukka Eskola Quintet and the Ricky-Tick Big Band while fronting his own ensemble. Earlier affiliations include the U-Street Allstars and the Teddy Rock Seven; as a sought-after session player he has appeared alongside many of the country’s leading figures in pop, R&B, and jazz. Among his own releases that have entered the charts are the 2009 collaboration Timo Lassy Featuring José James Round Two and the buoyant 2015 album Love Bullet, yet these represent only a small portion of the more than one hundred recording sessions in which he has taken part.

Born in Helsinki, Lassy took up the tenor saxophone before his teenage years. Displaying early facility in both technique and writing, he trained at the Sibelius Academy. He participated in the Nu Spirit Helsinki collective from its outset and performed across pop, R&B, electronic, and jazz circles with artists such as Ultra Bra, Tino Singh, and Tommi Läntinen. In 2002 he joined the U-Street Allstars for the Helsinki Sessions; bassist Timo Tuppurainen was also a member of that group. The same year brought his entry into the Five Corners Quintet. Conceived initially as a studio venture, the ensemble generated an energy that demanded live presentation, and the musicians built a substantial following through performances throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Their 2005 recording Chasin’ the Jazz Gone By featured American vocalist Mark Murphy, and a further album with the singer, Hot Corner, appeared in 2008. Lassy issued his first solo album, The Soul & Jazz of Timo Lassy, on Ricky-Tic Records the following year, then released Round Two, recorded with American vocalist José James; that same year he formed the Timo Lassy Band, whose roster included double bassist Antti Lötjönen, drummer Teppo “Teddy Rok” Mäkynen, and percussionist Abdissa “Mamba” Assefa. In 2010 the Five Corners Quintet issued the live album The Helsinki Sessions and embarked on a world tour.

Lassy returned to the studio in 2012 for Italy’s Schema label, resulting in the widely praised In with Lassy. Subsequent performances with his own group yielded the 2014 Schema release Live with Lassy, after which he immediately entered the studio once more alongside his band and fellow Five Corners Quintet trumpeter Jukka Eskola. The sessions produced Love Bullet, issued on Germany’s Must Have Jazz imprint under the Membran umbrella; the album received further favorable notices and outsold all of his earlier projects combined. In 2017 he collaborated with Brazilian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ed Motta on the EP When the Devil’s Paid, which received airplay on the United Kingdom’s Jazz FM and remained near the summit of the jazz charts for five straight weeks. Although the band maintained an active touring schedule, its members convened again to record Moves, also for Must Have Jazz, the next year; the album registered on nearly every Western European jazz streaming chart. The set drew together the stylistic threads that had shaped Lassy’s work from the start—1960s soul, Latin jazz, vocal jazz, electronic textures, and elements of hip-hop. In 2019 Lassy and Mäkynen issued a self-titled duo recording on the Helsinki-based We Jazz label, a sister imprint to the internationally recognized festival; the project returned to exploratory hard-bop and post-bop terrain. Issued after the February 7-inch single “Zomp” b/w “Dark Magenta,” the full-length album appeared in the spring amid considerable interest.