in 1995, pohjola moved to new york city and became a part of the downtown jazz scene. he briefly studied with pianist sal mosca. pohjola performed at new york clubs such as the blue note, birdland, the five spot, smalls, the jazz standard and visiones. his many bands featured saxophonists chris cheek, mark turner and miguel zenón, guitarist ben monder, bassists matt penman, johannes weidenmüller and fernando huergo, drummers roberto dani, marlon browden, darren beckett, matt wilson and mark ferber. in the 1990s, pohjola often toured europe, and performed in his native finland, sweden, denmark, the united kingdom, germany and italy. pohjola was also invited to play in ukraine in 1999, 2001 and 2002. in 2002 to 2005 pohjola spent much time in his own recording studio, documenting ambitious arrangements of scandinavian traditional and popular music. he released the catalogue of the original moomin music on "moomin voices" (2003 in swedish; 2005 in finnish). his main collaborators included vocalists theo bleckmann, rigmor gustafsson, lisa werlinder, sanni orasmaa and eeppi ursin; and instrumentalists alan ferber, david ambrosio, christof knoche, laura arpiainen and ayumi takeshima. he also recorded scandinavian christmas music on "scandinavian yuletide voices" (2005), and a tribute to the finnish legendary tango composer, toivo kärki on the album, "leivonen lumimyrskyssä (a lark in a snowstorm)" (2006).