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Written in fRoots issue 358, April 2013


SAMPO LASSILA NARINKKA
Suomiklezmer
Narinkaattori NARI001 (2012)

Mercifully free of the “we are so zany” grab-the-crowd jollity of some klezmer-nouveau bands, this is indeed, as the title avers, a Finnish take on the form.
     Narinkka, named after the old bus station square in Helsinki, is the trio of double-bassist Sampo Lassila, viola player Aleksi Santavuori, and on most of the tracks chromatic button-accordionist Antti Leinonen, now replaced in the band by Harri Kuusjärvi who appears on the rest.
     In sound it has the dark, silky poise of Poland’s Kroke, with a Finnishness in the feel and material, including a hint of humppa and an extrapolation of a Finnish polska.
     There’s a reflective, honest sensitivity in the music, which is all written by Lassila except the traditional klezmer tune Eden, and it’s in keeping with the subjects to which it pays tribute, such as a Catalan Jew meeting Finnish volunteers in the Spanish civil war and ending up in Helsinki, Moscow-murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the Finnish Tunturi ‘pappa’ moped. The most poignant story behind a tune is of a love letter describing the beauties of their children and nature, sent by a Jewish wife in Poland to her husband, working in Finland, just four days before she and the children were taken away by the Nazis; her letter was found, when he died in Finland three decades later, as the only contents of an old leather case he always carried.

www.narinkka.com


© 2013 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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