Sorry, some of these posts are French only

Essais / About a trio2015-05-01

So many possibilities existed for coming back to a trio. One of them was simply not to pursue things and just let them happen and follow the direction the wind was blowing over the last years that had been so rich in shared projects.

Playing with no definite goal, loving to do the job and enjoying the taste of others, time and again… Could I ever have imagined that a new sense of something so evident could come out of another one of those parisian nights in the rue des Lombards? A last minute gig and a desire to meet up again with two people I had admired for such a long time, three sets of a disconcerting limpidity and an idea, born at the end of the night: “couldn’t we keep on doing it?” — That’s what I call strategy!

To keep on doing it, that was the idea. To let ourselves be carried along by a complete absence of plans: no concept other than to keep each one’s most intimate connection with his instrument and try to make it sound together. We talked a little and played a lot, commencing with the grand repertoire about which we all naturally agreed to agree that we could not forego. We gave concerts, and more concerts. Sometimes with talking, sometimes not. Sometimes with original pieces, sometimes not. Sometimes with a pre-defined order, sometimes not. C’est si bon, I can tell you!

Still, slowly, ideas were taking shape and a selection of tunes started to stand out: we decided to make them our own, twisting them around as we felt like doing it, as what is called jazz probably allows it.

And we finally agreed on a studio recording. More precisely, we succumbed to the ineffable charms of an exceptional spot at the foot of the Cévennes mountains, and to the know-how and wonderful presence of the person who, in the fullest sense, lives there. We played and played again, trying to stay as close as we could to live conditions, coming out of the session without even having listened to all the takes or decided on what we would keep. C’est si bon, really!

But beyond all those things that turned out to be so precious, what mattered even more was to share an adventure with two remarkable individuals whose philosophy of life and way of playing infuse their chosen paths, paths that are as exceptional as their talent. They are both lovers of things well-done, motivated only by the desire to explore relentlessly what they love… so as to love it a little more. They are both sources of inspiration whose depth and natural goodwill seem to suggest at each moment that the question of modernity is decidedly no longer to be posed in the terms of the aforesaid modernity.

So, all that for a record of so-called standards, from both sides of the Atlantic. The lyrics and titles of some of them — at times vaguely oxymoronic — talk of the sun and water, of sky and earth, of pain and hope, of promises and detachment but also, we hope, most deeply, of music, life, love and all that, without the slightest oxymoron!

Thank you for taking the time to read this and, even more, for listening to our music. C’est si bon!

/ May 2015 (traduction Audrey Fogels)

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