Eero Koivistoinen, Finnish saxophonist, composer, and conductor

Eero Koivistoinen is a Finnish jazz musician and saxophone player, who started his career in the mid-1960s. Koivistoinen has worked as a musician, composer, arranger, conductor, producer and educator. He was born in Helsinki and first heard jazz from the records his sailor brother had brought in from his travels. As a youngster Koivistoinen studied classical violin, saxophone and also composition at the Sibelius Academy, and later jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston. His first line-up featured the drummer Edward Vesala and bassist Pekka Sarmanto. Koivistoinen was also a member of the seminal Finnish rock band Blues Section in the years 1967 and 1968. In 1968 he released his first solo album, a "literary record" called Valtakunta which featured songs composed to the texts of such poets as Pentti Saarikoski, Jarkko Laine, Tuomas Anhava and Hannu Mäkelä; interpreted by the vocalists Vesa-Matti Loiri, Eero Raittinen and Seija Simola. Eero Koivistoinen's later solo albums such as Wahoo (1972) enjoy a considerable international reputation. His hip hop-influenced 2006 album X-Ray features such people as the vocalists Charles Salter and Bina Nkwazi, DJ LBJ and the rap artist Redrama.