Mika Mylläri is a versatile and productive Jazz soloist, composer and conductor.
His musical mind is always open for the new winds. Jazz is the language and the feeling for Mika, but his musical philosophy and the orientation bends much deeper than any stylistic limitation.
Mika is at home with all different kinds of Jazz expression. Early jazz, Be bop, Hard bop, Free jazz, Fusion... Hard bop to be some kind of elementary check point or filter.
But, all that matters at the end of the day for Mika M. is "the sound" and "the expression", That's Jazz .
"a musician should always live in the moment, then he knows he's awake! If he then manages to express the sound in his head he can't be wrong, 'cause he's riding on the top of the action".
Mika Mylläri (born 1966 in Kokkola) started his professional career at the age of 17.
He moved to Helsinki in 1985 and started to play in Espoo Big Band (a musical "homage" for a good group of jazz musicians and composers in Finland). He also started his studies at the Sibelius Academy the following year.
Mika visited New York around 1987-89. He got the influences of N.Y jazz by studying, practicing, jamming and living the life of the late 80's. He played and hung out with other young guys like Troy Davis, Steven Scott and Roy hargrove.
Mika moved to Copenhagen in the 1990 to study and compose for his new quintet MMQ. This quintet made it's first domestic tour in the 1990, and as a result, MMQ was voted as the 1990 "jazz band of the year", in Finland!.
Mika Moved to Paris in the autumn of 1993 and started to concentrate on his composition work. He stayed there until the spring of 1996.
Mika recorded a new CD "Les Ponts"- (documentary of the yers in Paris), with MMQ. When he moved back home, the album was voted as the 1996 "Jazz album of the year", in Finland.
At the conclusion of 10 years of studying and travelling, he also took a master degree in jazz at the Sibelius Academy.
Mika signed on as a conductor for the Pori Big Band in 1997 (Pori Jazz Festival,Finland). That same year he started to play with Ed Jones (UK). A collaboration that has led to many tours, recordings and composition projects.
They also established a festival, "Polar Jazz" that was held in London in 2000. That same year he composed and wrote a large work for singers, dancers, string quartet and a fusion band named "The Spell".
The spell was commissioned by Savonlinna City Theatre and the performance was held on the famous opera stage in the castle of Olavinlinna in the autumn of 2000.Mika recorded with US3 (UK/USA) in 2001 "An ordinary day in an unusual place"-(Universal) and with Ed Jones Quintet (UK) in 2002 "7 moments"-(EJQmusic).Mika has visited several times as a guest with the Jonathan Gee trio (UK), since 2001. Collaboration with Jonathan Gee has led to bookings at Ronnie Scotts jazz club, Aprill jazz festival (FI) and Pori Jazz festival (FI).
The year, 2003, Mika joined a fresh project "The Monk Liberation Front", founded by Jonathan Gee, Tony Kofi and Phil Clark. MLF is a band that plays all the 70 known Thelonius Monk compositions + a composition by Philip Clark. The first groundbreaking concert was held in the November 2003 at the London Jazz festival. It took 6 hours to do it! for more details of MLF click here
One of Mika's latest projects is a duo album with the composer and pianist Ralf Nyqvist. They arranged and composed an album called "Lullabies" -out now!.
Lullabies is Finland-Swedish and Finnish folksongs -lullabies, that the duo performs the very unique way. Duo's background ensemble is the strings and the reeds from the Vasa Symphony orchestra.
Check the music of the lullabies, click here
New Album will be out in the end of 2007!
