Jonathan Bäckström Quartet on archipelago tour – Jazz Federation’s tour pilots measure climate impacts

Finnish Jazz Federation develops the sustainability of touring concepts. During fall 2022, we study the emissions of seven differently produced tours, and collect data about their impacts and user experiences. The third of the pilot tours takes bassist Jonathan Bäckström’s quartet along the South-Western archipelago.

Jonathan Bäckström Quartet’s music is defined by streamlined, timeless groove. The Finnish-Swedish foursome travels to the coast of the Baltic Sea and explores concert life in the archipelago towns and villages, including some of the core locations of the Archipelago Sea Jazz festival network. The tour sets sail in Hanko, visits Parainen, Turku, Taalintehdas, and finally returns to home harbor in Helsinki. The group drives Jazz Finland’s tour bus and carries a portable sound gear to the seaside concert venues outside the busy festival season.

Kruunupyy-hailing bassist Jonathan Bäckström leads his band through his compositions that run like rivers: from minimalist soundscapes to free-flowing layers of melodic streams, and cascading improvisation. The archipelago journey is completed alongside his fellow travelers, alto saxophonist Marcus Wärnheim, tenor saxophonist Jarno Tikka and drummer Benjamin Nylund.

The sense of the sea is a well of inspiration to the band leader Bäckström: “It feels special to perform at the coastal region with this ensemble for the first time”, the captain says and continues: “it’s immensely important to protect the archipelago and its heritage, so that the future generations get to experience its richness.”.

Piloting various touring possibilities reveals climate effects

In 2022–2023, the Finnish Jazz Federation runs a project, titled “Finnish Jazz Federation’s carbon-neutral touring model”. The aim is to map the carbon footprint and handprint of Finnish live music, and to develop Jazz Finland’s own tour system to become more environmentally sustainable. On top of their three regular tour productions, the federation produces or supports seven pilot tours in the fall of 2022.

In addition to the organization’s own tour bus, the touring acts hit the road by train and electric car, and besides making circular routings to cover the whole of Finland, there are more localized tours, like one in Lapland and one in the South-Western archipelago, and one of the bands travels to Sweden to tour locally there, using public transportation. One of the pilot tours combines evening concerts to school concerts during the days, to approach new audiences while they’re in the area.

In addition to collecting emission data and experiences, Finnish Jazz Federation encourages the bands and the concert organizers to take action against climate change. The bands are provided with information and templates to draft their own “green riders” and use them in the future bookings too. The concert promoters also get support and tips to take steps towards greener events. These climate-smart choices include preferring low-carbon transportation methods and providing information about them to audiences too, saving energy and choosing renewable sources, reducing waste and recycling materials, and making healthy, vegan food easily available to artists, staff and audiences.

The Jazz Federation’s sustainability efforts are affiliated with the broader development in the Finnish live music industry. The small but driven association also coordinates the 2022–2023 project to engage a great number of live professionals and measure the climate impacts of the whole Finnish live music sector. Together with sustainability specialists and the leading Finnish music organizations, the project results in the live music branch’s road map to carbon-neutrality.

The tour is supported by Finnish Music Foundation MES.

Jonathan Bäckström Quartet

Marcus Wärnheim – alto saxophone
Jarno Tikka – tenor saxophone
Benjamin Nylund – drums
Jonathan Bäckström – bass

Concert dates:

Wed 21.9. at 7.00 pm Hanko, City Hall / Hanko City
Thu 22.9. at 7.00 pm Parainen, Jazz Café AXO / Korpo Jazz rf
Fri 23.9. at 10.00 pm Turku, Flame Jazz, Café Tiljan / Jazz City Turku ry.
Sat 24.9. at 12.00 noon Taalintehdas, Apple Day, Söderlångvik manor / Baltic Jazz rf.
Sun 25.9. Helsinki, Luckan / Föreningen Luckan

Other pilot tours in 2022:

25.8.–4.9.2022 Quartet Ajaton – Co-production Tour
19.–25.9.2022 Jonathan Bäckström Quartet – Coastal Tour
3.–9.10.2022 Jazzup! – Clubs and Schools Tour
10.–16.10.2022 Adele Sauros Quartet – Nordic Jazz Comets Tour in Sweden
31.10.–6.11.2022 Varre Vartiainen Almost standards Live! – Train Tour
14.–20.11.2022 Mirja Mäkelä Trio – Co-production Tour

Carbon footprint is also measured on the following Jazz Finland’s regular tours:

9.–25.9.2022 Jussi Fredriksson Trio
10.–23.10.2022 Max Zenger Globus
17.–28.11.2022 Finnish-French “Free Voices & Sounds” Co-production: Pohjola Tikkanen Darrifourcq (FIN-FRA) & Darrifourcq Hermia Ceccaldi (BEL-FRA)

Jazz Finland’s essential form of operation is national touring. The annual touring activities enable approximately 100 concerts in 40 different locations all over Finland. The concerts mainly take place in Jazz Finland’s member organizations. Four of the tours are in-house productions of Jazz Finland, and five are produced in co-operation with external producers.