Odysseus, Eero Koivistoinen's first proper jazz album, gets its title from the wandering spirit of its songs, traveling from one mood to another. Performed by the Eero Koivistoinen Quintet & Sextet, because Koivistoinen wanted to extend his standard quartet (Koivistoinen-Sarmanto-Laine-Hietanen) to a quintet and invited trumpetist Bertil L^vgren to join. Also Juhani Aaltonen is questing on two tracks. Odysseus is an excellent, youthful package of forward-thinking jazz played by ambitious young jazz superstars-to-come. The compositions are at times lyrical, at others furious and complex, but ever captivating. The original Odysseus LP, released by the book publisher Otava Kustannus in 1969, is among the ten most expensive pieces of Finnish vinyl. Jazzpuu/S?hk^ Recordings reissued Odysseus in 2006 as did we in 2016, yet both of these releases have been hard to find ever since.
