Kalle Salonen

Sometimes you have to wait for something good to come and even if it would have been existing for a long time it may be carefully hidden. Something like this describes the career of Kalle Salonen when Teuvo Merkkiniemi, the instructor of Culture Workshop Valo first met him. Back then Kalle was working at a laundry and he enjoyed his work because of the fascinating sounds coming from the washing machines.

Later Merkkiniemi discovered that he had stumbled upon a frantic Hammond-genius, a jazz-, funk-, soul- and blues-virtuoso who had played the Hammond organs since the age of two. He had been familiarized with the music in his father’s lap.

Since 2012, Kalle has led his own band with great passion. The past three years Kalle and the band’s producer and drummer Hannu Pikkarainen have been the driving force and heart of the band, working closely together. The Kalle Salonen band draws its influences from funk, jazz as well as rhythm and blues. Salonen rules the band with strong compositional abilities and impeccable taste of various musical styles. Hannu Pikkarainen captures the artist as follows: “We started jamming, playing Kalle’s songs and found ourselves in the realm of free improvisation. We covered free jazz, funk and blues. I realized that I am producing the music of an incredibly strong and boldly performing artist; an artist who has something to say and with excellent compositional capabilities.” Kalle’s never ending love for the music drives him forward creating music with dedication over the genre-boundaries. The band’s first album Cat Slide (Texicalli Records) was released in October 2013 and received strong reviews.

In 2013-2014 there was a series of Kalle’s own Hammond-clubs held in Bar Loose. After that the club has taken its form as a terrace club at Elmun Baari, providing the audience fine, program-specific Hammond-organ shows with various guest-artists. Since then, the club has continued its idyllic atmosphere at the terrace of Elmun Baari. 

Kalle can also be heard on the radio; he works as a radio show organist for Radio Helsinki and hosts also his own show Kalle Salonen vieraineen at Radio Valo. In both shows he creates groovy sounds live on the spot spiced with his ingenious and spontaneous humor.

Kalle Salonen's second album, Barracuda Man, was released in February 2016 by Texicalli Records. In the new album the band has developed its sounds more into the world of jazz and blues and drawn inspiration from disco sounds of the seventies.