Edward Vesala

Edward Vesala (15 February 1945 – 4 December 1999), born Martti Vesala, was a Finnish avant-garde jazz drummer. Born in Mäntyharju, he began playing jazz and rock in the 1960s, in such bands as Blues Section and Apollo. In the 1970s, he led his own jazz groups, a quartet with Polish trumpet player Tomasz Stańko and sax player Tomasz Szukalski, played with Toto Blanke's Electric Circus, and recorded with Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek. In the 1980s and 1990s, Vesala recorded several albums of his own compositions that combined jazz, classical music, tango, and folk music with his own group Sound & Fury, an ensemble of about ten players made up mostly of Vesala's students. Prominent players in Sound and Fury included saxophonists Jorma Tapio and Pepa Päivinen, guitarists Raoul Björkenheim and Jimi Sumén, and harpist and keyboardist Iro Haarla, who was Vesala's wife. Vesala died from congestive heart failure in Yläne, Finland at the age of 54.