Jussi Paavola has been playing since he was 15, when in 1996 he got his first alto saxophone. He got interested in playing the sax after listening to what he would later call his first role model, Maceo Parker, playing in the bands of James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic.

After a few years of sax lessons and hard practise (still being underage) he started to perform with the local groups in Helsinki, in various clubs and venues. At this point, he also started seriously studying music theory and improvisation by expanding his musical landscape with reggae, hip-hop and jazz in particular.

Jussi started music studies in 2001 at the pop & jazz conservatory in Helsinki after graduating from high school. This made it possible for him to start focusing on music full time. At the same time he got familiar with writing music, arranging, recording, etc... Before finishing the degree in the top of his class, Jussi had been working with people like Paul Lunga (Zimbabwe), Neff Irizarry II (Puerto Rico) and Felipe Salles (Brazil) just to mention a few, he had made an intensive expedition to the Caribbean islands with Heikki Tuhkanen (the trombone player of the Finnish Horns) and made a diploma work composing and recording his own material.

After graduating from the conservatory, Jussi has been working as a professional musician touring mainly around Finland with different groups like CapeNape and the Foundation, Aiyekooto Afrobeat International, KoPla and most recently with one of the best Mbalax groups in Europe The Galaxy. He has also been organizing jam sessions in the Helsinki area and keeping himself busy arranging for The Finnish Horns.

Recently, Jussi has started to earn a reputation for being one of the up and coming sax players in Finland especially for the so called urban scene. Since the beginning, he was always fascinated with the rhythmic aspects of music, which can be heard in the way he plays and seen in the spectrum of the musical influences he has had over the years. Having a strong knowledge of worldbeat, jazz and Afro-Caribbean music but not forgetting the more contemporary styles like dancehall and hip-hop, Jussi Paavola is representing the more open minded generation of musicians exploring the music beyond the barriers.