Jussi Reijonen

Jussi Reijonen

is an award-winning composer, Improviser,
fretted/fretless guitarist and Arabic ‘ud player.

Born in Rovaniemi, a small town on the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland, fretted/fretless guitarist and ‘ud player Jussi Reijonen is truly a product of liminal spaces.

Having grown up in Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman and Lebanon, and spending much of his adulthood in the United States, Jussi has lived a life soaking up sounds, sights, scents and shades of Nordic, Arabic, African and North American aesthetics and expression, all of which are reflected in his creative work as composer and performer.

Jussi’s debut album un | ان [unmusic 2013] was released to great critical acclaim, with Guitar Player magazine referring to it as “extraordinary music” and Lucid Culture calling it a “still, spacious, slowly unwinding masterpiece”. The album was nominated for an Independent Music Award in 2014.

His 2022 album Three Seconds | Kolme Toista [Challenge Records International 2022] introduced his nonet with Jason Palmer (USA), Bulut Gülen (Turkey), Layth Sidiq (Jordan/Iraq), Naseem Alatrash (Palestine), Utar Artun (Turkey), Kyle Miles (USA), Keita Ogawa (Japan) and Vancil Cooper (USA) and was nothing short of an artistic triumph. Described as “unlike anything in memory… creates a new, genre-less, form… spellbinding from beginning to end, and full of virtuoso performances… one of the best recordings of 2022” by AllAboutJazz and “a stunner… a unified, diverse, overwhelming statement” by JazzTimes, the album has been a major international critical success, receiving 5-star reviews and being selected as Best Creative Albums of 2022 by AllAboutJazz and Best Jazz Albums of 2022 by Glide Magazine.

His Three Seconds | Kolme Toista nonet was chosen as a Jazzahead! 2023 official showcase artist.

In 2025, he announced his latest project sayr, a series of completely improvised solo recordings exploring the small, simple and sparse, the rugged earthy, the gnarly unpretty; and most of all, bare feet in soil; roots and branches; and paths less – or differently – predetermined. The series will be launched with a double release of two albums, sayr: salt | thirst and sayr: kaiho – live in Helsinki on October 24th, 2025 via his own label unmusic.

Alongside his work as leader, Jussi has collaborated with a diverse array of world-renowned artists, including Jack DeJohnette, Robin Eubanks, Pepe de Lucía, Simon Shaheen, Bassam Saba, Arto Tunçboyacıyan, Hüsnu Şenlendirici, The New York Gypsy All-Stars, Javier Limón, Dave Weckl and David Fiuczynski among others, and has been a member of the New York Arabic Orchestra (NYAO).

He has performed extensively at prestigious festivals and venues throughout the United States like Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress, as well as in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Canada, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.

A summa cum laude graduate of Berklee College of Music (B.M. ‘11) and New England Conservatory of Music (M.M. ‘13) in Boston, he is currently pursuing his doctorate at Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, where he also teaches.