I’ve known Matti Nives, artistic director and founder of WeJazz label, for about seven years now, ever since we took part together in the themed trip “Jazz in Germany,” organized by several German institutions. We were invited as representatives from different countries around the world to get acquainted with the German scene, and along the way we also got to know each other.

At the time, I wasn’t very familiar with the catalogue of his label but we stayed in touch, and I soon grew to love many of the bands releasing music there. It feels like the entire WeJazz universe has expanded quite a bit—there’s now an excellent magazine, festivals in Helsinki, record store, and more.

We met again at this year’s jazzahead!, where we recorded an interview that I’ll soon publish as an audio podcast on Substack. I also created a few short preview videos for as a “teaser” for our conversation.