The son of bassist
Pekka Pohjola, Pohjola studied at the Jazz and Pop Conservatory in Helsinki and the Örebro Music School. From 1999 he studied jazz music at the
Sibelius Academy, where he met pianist Tuomo Prättälä, bassist Antti Lötjönen, and drummer
Olavi Louhivuori, members of his
Ilmiliekki Quartet in 2002. In 2003 they released their debut album
March of the Alpha Males, followed by
Take It With Me in 2006 . In addition, Pohjola is a member of the band
Quintessence, the band of Iro Haarla, the ensemble
Suhkan Uhka of Antti Hytti and Jone Takamäki, the
UMO Jazz Orchestra, and the
post-rock band
Silvio, where he plays the drums. With his brother Ilmari, he played with his father
Pekka Pohjola for the first time on his album Views (2001) . His first solo album
Aurora was first released 2009 by the Finnish independent label Texicalli Records and came out for the German label ACT Music 2011. The only non-original composition of the eight tracks is
Joaquín Rodrigo's
Concierto de Aranjuez Amour. The artist has been cited that his music is “about embracing life in all of its complex emotions, while we still have it. After all, the dead don’t dream.” The final phrase makes also the title of his 2020 solo album. The sidemen for this seven tracks comprising CD and vinyl disc release at Edition Records have been: Antti Lötjönen bass, Mika Kallio drums, Miikka Paatelainen pedal steel guitar,
Tuomo Prättälä piano and electronics and Pauli Lyytinen soprano and tenor saxophone. The
JazzTimes reviewer commented about Pohjola: "he plays ideas you haven’t heard before". On Pohjola's initiative,
Kaija Saariaho composed her last work, the Trumpet Concerto
Hush, and he premièred it in 2023 with the
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. == Honors ==