Musical Ramblings

Les Claypool - Cosmic Highway

This was the closing song for Les Claypool's set during the first night of Jam in the Dam in Amsterdam on March 21st. Very strange, as Claypool tends to be, although this one was surprisingly sane and listenable, I thought.

Celebrating Django's 100th anniversary

Django Reinhardt was born in 1910, exactly 100 years ago. He was instrumental in creating a whole musical genre known as gipsy jazz or French jazz and is - unsurprisingly - widely celebrated in 2010. Last night, a concert was held in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris featuring a core group of Django inheritors (Romane, Boulou Ferré and Elias Ferré) who invited other guitarists from the extended Manouche family.

It was really a who's who of Gipsy Jazz, with Matthieu Chatelain, David Reinhardt, Angelo Debarre, Ninine Garcia, Rocky Gresset, Pierre Manetti. Only the Schmitts and the Rosenbergs were missing! What was (in my opinion) very cool about this concert was two things: first, there was real fun and emotion. Despite the somewhat formal venue, the musicians were just as relaxed as in their more habitual concert venues (smaller theaters and clubs), shouting "Mictho!" when appropriate smiling, foot-tapping, etc.

The other thing that I liked is that (probably due to the insane number of guitarists involved) there was a real effort to find different arrangements for the Django standards that were covered. This was quite evident on tunes like Artillerie Lourde and Minor Swing. Boulou Ferré was particularly adept at harmonizing the well-known melodies. Nice touch, and a good way to make music with so many guitarists palatable.

Highlights for me were La Marseillaise (or how to transform a war song into a romantic bluette), the always wonderful Rythme Futur and Angelo's take on La Nuit de Saint Germain des Prés. If you like this style of music, a record was released for the occasion under the title of Django 100 and it's very good and fresh sounding for a repertoire that has been covered hundreds of times.

The finale was quite spectacular, and particularly enjoyable for my 9 year old son who was attending with me. A curtain was opened at the back of the stage, and a hundred or so amateur guitarists appeared who played the backing "pompe" for the last two numbers. It gave a quite spectacular sound, and was also visually impressive with all these hands moving in the same way on all these guitars...

I shot quite a few videos as I seem to have solved my zi6 issues. Here's Babik, appropriately played with David Reinhardt (Django's grandson, Babik's son), but you can find the others on my Youtube Channel.

Habanera A Capella...

Discovering Elise Caron...

The week-end before last, I went to the Sunset on Sunday evening to listen to Laurent de Wilde and his trio inviting Elise Caron. I'm partial to the piano-bass-drums trio at the best of times, but it was more Elise Caron's name that attracted me there. I read repeatedly on Sunship's blog that she was an amazing singer and the few videos that he posted tended to prove the point.

And that was nowhere near as powerful as the real thing of seeing and hearing her with the Laurent de Wilde trio. I feel very lucky in a sense, because this was their first concert together and there are no plans as of yet to make this a longer lasting collaboration. I hope it does happen again, because the chemistry was evident and the music was hair-raising.

There's something special in seeing talented musicians play together for the first time. They are on edge because the repertoire is brand new, they are also elated when it works because - in a sense - they are discovering the material at the same time the audience is. And believe me, it worked that night. The repertoire was a mix of songs Elise Caron played in different contexts (mostly from her album with Lucas Gillet A Thin Sea of Flesh) but also some of her own compositions, and covers of Ferré, Stevie Wonder, the Beatles and others.

While Elise really moved me, I shouldn't give you the impression that Laurent de Wilde's trio was in any way not up to the task, it's just that when singers are involved you tend to focus your attention on them. But the trio was amazing. Laurent de Wilde had just the right level of involvement, not too up front, not too subdued, and his playing and harmonizing is both subtle and unusual. Laurent Robin on drums really pushed the trio forward, like a good drummer should, and while Bruno Rousselet is a very solid bassist, he peppered his playing with a little fantasy that made it stand out too.

I immediately purchased two Laurent de Wilde CDs (The Presence and Organics) as well as Elise's A Thin Sea of Flesh, which I've only been able to give a couple of listens, but I can already say it's a long-lasting beauty. It's hard to describe Elise Caron. She looks like a younger Jane Birkin and has some of her mannerisms (probably not deliberately), but she sings like a broken angel: her voice can soar or break, it's crystalline and flexible, but she can growl to, or veil it. Her range and breadth of expression are astounding.

I have ordered two other albums of her today, Euridyce Bis and Chansons pour Les Petites Oreilles, and I'll let you know what that's like.

I really wish I had shot a couple of videos at the concert. I didn't dare because I was literally standing in the musician's faces, and I worried it would distract them. There's actually a dearth of Elise Caron stuff on Youtube. The best if a pop-jazz show she did on Franco-German TV Channel Arte. It's all 80s pop covers, but hopefully you'll get a feel for the thrill of her voice...

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

People are People

People are People only starts properly at 1.15. Wait until then, it's worth it. And makes me realise I never listened to the lyric on the original...