Pekka Sarmanto is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 bassist. Heikki Sarmanto

Heikki Sarmanto

Heikki Veli Uolevi Sarmanto is a Finnish jazz pianist and composer.Sarmanto started playing jazz in the 1960s. He studied first at the Sibelius Academy and later in Berklee College of Music in Boston...

 is Pekka's brother.

Pekka Sarmanto first studied classical violin at the Sibelius Academy from 1958 to 1964 before he switched to upright bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

. He played dance music

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

 at first, but was soon invited to appearances in jazz clubs by bandleader

Bandleader

A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....

s like Eero Koivistoinen

Eero Koivistoinen

Eero Koivistoinen is a Finnish jazz musician and saxophone player, who started his career in the mid-1960s. Koivistoinen has worked as a musician, composer, arranger, conductor, producer and educator. He first heard jazz from the records his sailor brother had brought in from his travels...

 and Esa Pethman.

In 1967 Sarmanto joined the house band of Down Beat Club where he played with musicians like Ben Webster

Ben Webster

Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...

 and Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...

. In 1975 Sarmanto founded the UMO

UMO

UMO can refer to:* United Macedonians Organization, a Macedonian organization in Canada.* United Macedonian Organisation: Ilinden–Pirin, a Macedonian organization in Bulgaria.* University of Maine at Orono ....

 (abbreviation of "Uuden Musiikin Orkesteri", New Music Orchestra). With UMO, Sarmanto accompanied many internationally important jazz musicians who were visiting Finland. Sarmanto met with Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

 (in Belgrade), Gil Evans

Gil Evans

Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...

, Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Edward Vesala

Edward Vesala

Edward Vesala , born Martti Vesala, was a Finnish avant-garde jazz composer, bandleader and drummer....

 and Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...

.

Sarmanto got Georgie Award (Yrjö-palkinto) of the Finnish Jazz Federation in 1978 . In 1982 he worked on album To a Finland Station with Dizzy Gillespie and Arturo Sandoval.

In 1996 Sarmanto founded Pekka Sarmanto Trio.

External links

• Pekka Sarmanto's profile by UMO