Jarno Kukkonen was born on July 26th, 1964 in Finland. Since His first radio recording at the age of 15 in 1980, Jarno has been active within the music community as a jazz and blues performer, composer-arranger and teacher, both domestically and internationally. He has currently three albums out (two using artist name Cuccone). His big band works have been performed since 1988. Jarno's current band is “Jarno Kukkonen Present” with George Kontrafouris (Hammond organ) and Jaska Lukkarinen (drums). This group finished recordings for their second CD in May, 2008.