Joona Toivanen Trio

Joona Toivanen Trio returns to We Jazz Records with their new album "Gravity", out 31 January 2025. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases the forward-looking sound of the band, moving way beyond the basic scope of the "piano trio". There’s a startling sense of telepathy and intimacy at work in the music of the Joona Toivanen Trio, something you can glean from the opening moments of their latest album, Gravity. It’s that rare synergy that can only come with years of time spent together onstage, in the rehearsal space, on tour throughout Europe, en route to the next show. To look at the discography of the Finnish piano trio is to see a relationship that stretches back to the year 2000, when they self-released their first album, Numurkah.

Only, the connection between pianist Joona Toivanen, drummer Olavi Louhivuori, and bassist Tapani Toivanen goes back even further. “Tapani is my younger brother and we moved to a neighborhood in Jyväskylä in central Finland when I was seven,” Joona Toivanen says. “And on my first day at school I met Olavi, who was in the same class as me!” Nowadays, the trio is geographically split between Gothenburg, Sweden (Joona), Copenhagen, Denmark (Tapani), and Helsinki, Finland (Olavi), but the unit sounds together as ever thanks to their extensive track record in developing their band sound.