Riitta Paakki Quartet

Riitta Paakki – p, Manuel Dunkel – sax, Antti Lötjönen – b, Joonas Riippa – dr

Paakki’s most recent quartet brings together various styles and distictive sounds of four Finnish top musicians. Manuel Dunkel’s tenor sax compliments Paakki’s playing in the most sensitive way, and the heavy-hitting rhythm section of Antti Lötjönen/Kaisa Mäensivu’s bass and Joonas Riippa’s drums gives a solid cornerstone to Paakki’s hard-bop-influenced compositions.

The written music gives plenty of room for interaction between the musicians, and together the band members create an expressive and joyful experience that is best enjoyed live. Occasionally they throw in some rare gems of the 60’s hard-bop era, and play them with some kind of a time-and-space distorting magic. Something old, something new, something American, something blue-and-white.

The quartet recorded its first album Live at Koko Jazz Club in January 2018, and it was released by Koko Records in August 2018.

Riitta Paakki Trio

Riitta Paakki – piano, Antti Lötjönen – bass, Jaska Lukkarinen – drums

Riitta Paakki Trio, consisting of Paakki, bassist Antti Lötjönen and drummer Jaska Lukkarinen, plays a mixture of modern and traditional acoustic piano trio jazz.

The trio released their latest album Characters in April 2015 on drummer Lukkarinen’s Jaskaa label. The album consists of legendary 1960's composer Wayne Shorter’s music, which Paakki has rearranged. Paakkis arrangements reflect their own style, where the dark, Finnish undertones interlace with Shorters strong melodies, groovy rhythms and delicate ambiance. The album title Characters points out the differences between the trio’s personalities and musical nuances, which meet and mix on the album.

Originally founded in 1996, with Ari-Pekka Anttila on bass and Mikko Hassinen on drums, the trio published three albums under the label Impala: RPT (2000), Enne (2004) and Onion (2006).

Other projects

• Riitta Paakki Solo Piano

• Riitta Paakki (piano) & Severi Pyysalo (vibraphone)