I think if you listen to Pekka's music, you can see he is able to be on the same level as Zappa. I realize most here probably haven't heard that much of him. There are about 10 lps on YouTube. They are diverse, some I don't find anywhere near as appealing as others.
I do like his work better than Zappa's, and curious if others do as well. Pekka was a fan of Zappa but did have formal musical training and came from a famous Finnish musical family.
At least Deep Purple didn't try to punch the guy out. They just got someone to burn down the studio.
Pekka Pohjola is one of the 3 musicians I really admire and Frank Zappa is not one of them.Originally Posted by regenerativemusic
I think I have Pekka Pohjola complete on CD.
I'm just starting to discover Frank Zappa, but it's more hit and miss for me. I don't like everything he made and I still have to hear any thing from Pekka Pohjola I don't like.
Pohjola has often been compared to Zappa and there ARE a few pieces in his repertoire which are vaguely "Zappa-ish." But it's not a fair comparison, in my view. Pohjola was mainly a jazz musician, playing mostly fusiony pieces though he also did a couple of divine pieces with orchestras. He was a bass virtuoso but he did not feature himself as a soloist very often. He did not sing. He did not do do-wop. He did not do comedy.
Favorite album: Pewit
I really love Ordinary music
What am I missing?
- 1972 - Pihkasilmä Kaarnakorva
- 1974 - Harakka Bialoipokku (aka B The Magpie)
- 1975 - Uni Sono (with Uni Sono)
- 1977 - Skuggornas Tjuvstart (aka The Mathematician's Air Display, aka Keesojen Lehto, aka The Consequences of Indecision)
- 1978 - The Group (with The Group)
- 1979 - Visitation
- 1980 - Kätkävaaran Lohikäärme
- 1982 - Urban Tango
- 1984 - Jokamies (aka Everyman)
- 1985 - Space Waltz
- 1986 - Yesterday's Games (with Espoo Big Band)
- 1986 - Flight of the Angel
- 1987 - New Impressionalist
- 1990 - Sinfonia No.1
- 1992 - Changing Waters
- 1995 - Heavy Jazz
- 1995 - Live In Japan
- 1997 - Pewit
- 2001 - Views
Apples and oranges. I would find it hard to compare them in any relevant way. Pohjola was certainly inspired by Zappa early on in terms of arrangement, rhythm and harmony. But he went in his own, much more introspective and polite direction.
Zappa is one of those artists that everybody here seems to adore but who largely fails to connect with me. I can certainly appreciate his talent and energy on an intellectual level, most of his work just fails to offer much enjoyment or compel me to listen to it. Hence I don't own a single Zappa album.
On the other hand, I have most of Pohjola's releases. I don't enjoy everything of his with equal glee - The Group hardly at all - but I both admire and find something to enjoy in all of them. Perhaps Pohjola has a bit of home team advantage. He has a great sense of simple, affective melody - "naive" and "grandiose" being the two strains of melody generally identifiable throughout his oeuvre - which was influenced by Finnish hymnal and, to a lesser degree, folk music. One can hear this clearly in some of his (IMO) best works like "The Image of a Passing Smile", "Try to Remember", and a big chunk of Jokamies. Zappa draws from his own popular tradition, and I'm afraid a lot of the stuff he chooses and the way he uses it doesn't move me that much. Pohjola at his best is affable, tasteful, introverted and almost naively pretty. Zappa is often exactly the opposite, which is probably why many love him so much. I know Pohjola had a high admiration of Zappa's work.
As for formal training, I don't know how much difference that made. Pohjola did have a very high opinion of his own (considerable) abilities, for example dismissing the early comparisons to Mike Oldfield because he regarded Oldfield as an amateur compared to himself. On the other hand, he too was, perhaps rightly, dismissed as an amateur when he tried his hand at "proper art music" with his first symphony. I've gathered that Zappa's ultimate dream was to be recognised for his art music work and that he struggled to develop the kind of musical language that he aspired to largely through instinct and autodidactism. Perhaps neither one was at his best, when trying to do "formal" art music, but rather somewhere in the middle ground between that and your rock music, kings of their own small, self-defined realms.
A little gossip: Tommy Körberg - Pekka Pohjola Says No To Frank Zappa To Mutch Bullshit
No disrespect intended but I don't see the point of comparing these two composers. Talk Classical does this all the time, and it usually ends up going nowhere or ends up seeing members fighting one another. Mahler vs Sibelius? Its fine to prefer one over the other but to try to convince others that one is "better" than the other? I just don't see it.
If it isn't Krautrock, it's krap.
"And it's only the giving
That makes you what you are" - Ian Anderson
A quote from Pohjola (circa 2000): "[Zappa] was really a fantastic music maker, which in itself is no guarantee of anything. For example, I've never listened to Zappa's favourite composer Edgar Varese. I have no energy for it and I'm not interested in that kind of music."
Which perhaps shows one more difference between the two musicians. Pohjola's art music aspirations might have been more traditional, for example Sibelius was one inspirations (though you couldn't grow up in Finland in the latter half of the 20th century and not be exposed to at least some of his music). Zappa was more modernist in his approach, with or without formal education.
But Pohjola did not say no to Zappa. He was supposed to play on Zappa's orchestral rock album in 1974, but the funding fell through and the project never went ahead.
This has been great so far. Sorry you don't see a point in discussing music like this. There is no winner, it's just a way to discuss an excellent musician beyond what we've done before.
I think these kinds of topics should be read as "why do I like x better than y" and discuss why you find it that way. Talkclassical is a great site and more here should visit there (and stay there)(for a while of course).
I think you have one, I don't have, I miss Uni Sono and I don't have an original release of Sinfonia No. 1. I have Heavy jazz / Live in Helsinki and Tokyo.
And I have Made In Sweden - Where do we begin, wich has basicly the same line-up as Keesojen Letho, but without Mike and Sally Oldfield and Pierre Moerlen and with a singer.
The recording dates on "Heavy Jazz" are labeled as April 18, 1995 (but actually December 15, 1994) in Helsinki and November 19, 1994 in Tokyo (two tracks).
On "Live in Japan" they're November 19, 1994, November 14, 1994 and December 15, 1994 (Helsinki two tracks). There is SOME overlap ("Risto" and "Heavy Jazz" from Tokyo, "Imppu's Tango" and "No Way Out" from Helsinki) but the other tracks are unique (4 on "Japan" and 7 on "Heavy Jazz").
Then I miss Live in Japan.
I also have some radio recordings.
Isn't "Made In Sweden" real pop music? I think I heard it once and thought, eh, no thanks.
Whoa, I think the recording dates listed on "Live In Japan" must be all messed up. The timings on three of the four tracks are exactly the same as on "Heavy Jazz", and sound to my ears to be the exact same performances. The only track unique to "Live in Japan" appears to be a"Mathematician's Air Display." Huh, never noticed that before!
I allways heard a simularity with Keesojen Letho, but perhaps that is just me.
No its not. Its jazz fusion with a melodic folk touch, some tracks on the albums are better than other. Tommy Körberg (the singer) went in a popular direction after this. Sings jazz, bigband, pop etc..
I thought this was going to be a dead musicians MMA thread.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
Would love to see more Pekka Pohjola live footage or interviews on YouTube. I wonder if anyone knows if there are any out there that aren't online now.
Somewhat, although Where Do We Begin only has one PP composition.
Tommy did pop music from the very beginning, but in the late 60s and early 70s he flirted with jazz and experimental jazz-rock with Made in Sweden and Solar Plexus. Both of those acts are worth investigating. His solo career, not so much, apart from that album he did with Stefan Nilsson, sort of his big farewell to fusion.
As for the PP/FZ debate, I am another one who is very selective in my admiration of Frank Zappa. I thought he got too caught up in cheap shock tactics at the expense of his credibility, but when his music was good, it was absolutely first-rate, without peer. I was listening to the Waka/Jawaka album recently and I was just struck by what a forgotten jewel its title track is. His discography is littered with such pearls, but you seriously have to dig through the muck to find them.
Pekka Pohjola? Well, I have heard eleven of his albums, and the only one I even come close to disliking is Jokamies, which doesn’t transcend its soundtrack origins. Other than that, one questionable vocal track on Urban Tango; the rest of that album—indeed, the rest of his discography—is golden. While Zappa is an obvious influence (see “Hot Mice” from Fairyport, as well as his debut solo LP, Pihkasilmä kaarnakorva, where he was wearing his influences on his sleeve), in general his composing and arranging style reminds me more of Carla Bley, especially on Harakka bialoipokku.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
Yesterday I played it and it sounds less than Keesojen Letho than I had in mind. I think one could hear some simularity in the synthesizer, because both albums have the same keyboard-player.
I suppose Zappa is more influential. His music is also played by other musicians, including classical ensembles, like this version of G spot tornado, which was played on Dutch television. Posted it before, but why shouldn't I post it again.
I think Pekka Pohjola is more like a local hero and of course one of my musical heros.
I suppose I should listen to Carla Bley.
Greetings,
I'm not a big fan of positioning musical artists competitively, but I suppose it's sort of an interesting pair of composer/musicians to compare and contrast. IMO, both were absolutely brilliant, however I find Zappa's output quite a bit more inconsistent in interest--though he's composed and recorded quite a bit of my all-time favorite music. Pekka's music, on the other hand, is something I find way more consistent and I love virtually all of it--and he's also produced quite a bit of music that's in that very same "all-time favorite" category.
Frank was certainly incredibly prolific and, from a personal perspective, I kind of lump him into a similar category as Chick Corea in regard to putting out a ton of music but with varying success in terms of my personal connection and enjoyment. Though I never had the opportunity to meet Frank or see any of his lineups in concert, I was privileged to spend time with Pekka (in 1993) and managed to get at least a sense of how he approached composing music and the criteria by which an idea seemed worth pursuing/completing, giving some insight into that side of the comparison (only).
Additionally, I also found Pekka's music to be something that became very much absorbed into my own sense of composition, but I can't really say that I "feel" much Zappa has permeated what I write or play in any significant way. Would love to be able to compose music that excites me in the same way that my favorite Zappa music does, but I don't think that would ever come naturally.
Cheers,
Alan
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