Markus Holkko Quartet

Saxophonist Markus Holkko (b. 1972) began his professional career right at the Finnish top – in a quintet that had won an international competition and whose name foreshadowed the future. Despite this, the two albums (2002, 2004) of U-Street All Stars, formed in 2000 by a group of young students, did not yet leave a long-lasting mark. But all its members have gained recognition in their later endeavours with Timo Lassy, the other saxophone of the quintet and Holkko’s “friendly rival” on stage, leading the pack. 

After the fade of U-Street All Stars, Holkko opted out of the group and threw himself into more modern, electronic fusion jazz with his own Markus Holkko Quartet. The time was ripe as Being Here (2007) won the Jazz Emma as the best jazz album of the year – the most prestigious jazz award in Finland. Its nominal successor took, however, exceptionally long to arrive, 17 years in total. The second album of the completely renewed, much younger Markus Holkko Quartet, Eye Of The Universe, was released last May. 

Holkko alludes to the long break on the Introduction track by pondering about creativity and the desire to create something permanent, perhaps even unique. In his time away, he never stopped playing, composing and searching for that something. 

In the last decade, Holkko has been most active with the Lightboxer band and perhaps unexpectedly in a completely different kind of project. He made two albums for a German record company as a multi-style singer-songwriter under the stage name Linear John. The alias refers to Holkko’s motto that “he has always moved forward in a linear fashion, without repetition”.