Jaak Sooäär’s (b. 1972) guitar ignites spontaneous improvisations, detonates dance beats, bursts noise envelopes and showers jazz- & rock-sharpnel.
At the moment, he is one of the busiest musicians on the Estonian jazz scene. It seems that he has co-operated with everyone who has something to say in the jazz related music. Sooäär is also one of the very few Estonian jazzmen who often performs abroad.
He has played with Daniel Erdmann, Pierre Dørge, Han Bennink, Raoul Björkenheim, Achille Succi, Sture Ericsson and Arkadi Gotesman. He played in all Scandinavian countries, Baltic States, Russia, Germany, France and Holland.
In the 1990s he studied in the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. In 1998 founded The Dynamite Vikings, which released “Vikingology” on the Cope Records in 2002.
In 2001, Sooäär played at Jazzkaar with his jungle-country-ambient-jazz-metal-acid-pop duo Almost Zebra, started in 1999 with Danish drummer Kartsen Mathiesen.
He has participated in numerous other projects. The most known in Estonia is the folk-jazz group Eesti Keeled, founded in 1999. Sooäär has composed and arranged most of their music. In 1999, he started the Dessert Time, duo with German sax player Daniel Erdmann, playing, as they call it themselves – “free happy jazz” – an uninhibited dialogue full of sharp turns of the phrase and full-throttle changes of subjects.
Currently Jaak Sooäär teaches guitar in the Estonian Music Academy. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.