U-Street All Stars – Bowling (2004)

Helsinki has one of the best jazz scenes in Europe. New cool jazz bands seem to appear all the time and the quality of their albums is comparable to world-class big names. Many of these jazz bands were formed in jazz schools of Helsinki and even quite young players became somewhat famous in jazz circles. U-Street All Stars is one of the most impressive jazz bands to come out of Helsinki around that time. Both of the albums they released have got a Blue Note marking, which isn't easy to get if I'm correct. Unfortunately U-Street All Stars' career was a short-lived one. They only released two albums and since I wasn't really paying enough attention to jazz those days, I missed my opportunity to see them live. I bet they would've been really good live considering the amazing talent you can hear on their albums. I bet they would've had gigs in Helsinki all the time. Even their name comes from the fact that their rehearsal space was on Uudenmaankatu, a street in Helsinki.



I do, however, have some personal experience with the band. As a late teenager, I used to play bass at a jazz school in my native town Espoo. My bass teacher was the bass player of the legendary jazz band Trio Töykeät, but every once in a while when he was not available, I had substitute teachers that included some of the biggest jazz names of the day. Back in the day I received one lesson from U-Street All Stars' first bass player, Timo Tuppurainen. He's not on this album, but he was on their debut album.

Bowling was a bit more easily approachable album than their debut Helsinki Sessions. The melodies are more easily recognisable and sometimes while listening to this album I find myself almost singing along. That doesn't mean that their music would be simple in any way. It's world class jazz with amazing talent and the songs are still a bit challenging for people who are not accustomed to jazz.

The album starts with a very cool song Super Treat that was also used as a theme song for a Finnish political talk show Pressiklubi back in the day. The sounds draw influences from prohibition time jazz and this kind of sound is at least in Finland sometimes called 'crime-jazz'. Bass Up! is a lot faster song that really shows the amazing talent of the brass section. The saxophones are amazing in this song. It's no wonder though, since tenor sax is played by Timo Lassy, who is one of the most acclaimed saxophone players in Finland today. The title-track Bowling has some latin beats and amazing parts that go in unison. There are some bowling sounds on this track as well. This Time is an old-timey jazz ballad with amazing smoky mood. Afrodite shows the talent of the rhythm section. The drums and bass in this song are quite phenomenal. Hard to Get has an amazing guitar solo. I don't necessarily always like electric guitar in jazz, but here it's quite amazing. Preach slows the tempo down a bit giving space for swingier sounds. Blue Is the Color is like a tip of a hat to the great Miles Davis. There are lots of similarities to his classic album Kind of blue. The album ends with another swing, Homecoming.

I couldn't find any music videos for U-Street All Stars. Maybe there are none. Anyway, I think it's nice to link at least some video, so here's a live performance where they perform music from this album. It sounds quite impressive live.

Listen to the album on Spotify.