John Carroll Kirby
Cryptozoo

To write these few lines, we spoke to saxophonist François Jeanneau, an old friend of Jacques Thollot who also played on several of his albums, including the “Watch Devil Go” which interests us here. He told us a story which, according to him, sums up the personality of Thollot. A noted studio had reserved three days for a Thollot recording session. The first morning was devoted to sound checks and putting some order in the score sheets which Jacques would hand out in a somewhat anarchic manner. Then everyone went for lunch. When the musicians returned to the studio, Thollot had disappeared. He wasn’t seen again for the three days. When he reappeared, he had already forgotten why he had left, The music of Jacques Thollot is in the image of its’ author: it takes you somewhere, suddenly escapes and disappears, returning in an unexpected place as if nothing had happened.Four years after a first album on the Futura label in 1971, Jacques Thollot returned, this time on the Palm label of Jef Gilson, still with just as much surrealist poetry in his jazz. In thirty-five minutes and a few seconds, the French composer and drummer, who had been on the scene since he was thirteen, established himself as a link between Arnold Schoenberg and Don Cherry. Resistant to any imposedframework and always excessive, Thollot allows himself to do anything and everything: suspended time of an extraordinary delicacy, a stealthy explosion of the brass section, hallucinatory improvisation of the synthesisers, tight writing, teetering on the classical, and in the middle of all that, a hit; the title-track - that Madlib would one day end up hearing and sampling.“Watch Devil Go” was in the right place in the Palm catalogue, which welcomed the cream of the French avant-garde in the 70s. But it is also the story of a long friendship between two men. Jacques Thollot and Jef Gilson had known and respected one another for a long time. Though barely sixteen years old, Thollot was already on drums on the first albums by Gilson starting in 1963 and would play in his big band (alongside François Jeanneau once again), ‘Europamerica’, until the end of the 70s.In a career lasting half a century and centred on freedom Jacques Thollot played with the most important experimental musicians (Don Cherry, Sonny Sharrock, Michel Roques, Barney Wilen, Steve Lacy, François Tusques, Michel Portal, Jac Berrocal, Noël Akchoté...) and they all heard in him a pulsation coming from another world.Jérôme "Kalcha" Simonneau

This fifth record, On/Off, Bachar wanted to record it in his native Lebanon. More precisely in the main room of his family house, a stone house standing alone in the mountains north of Beirut.In this big room there is all that’s needed: a piano, a chimney, the stove and some rare instruments who have been sleeping there for years, serving as decorations. For two whole weeks, Bachar welcomes, shapes and celebrates the urgency of creation. The recording takes place in decembre 2019, it’s rhythm follows that of the popular uprising which is shaking Lebanon since october.In his own way, Bachar contributes to it - emotion is raw, his music is stripped down, just liked his country.In the house, electricity goes on & off twice, a day. During the night, hostile and freezing, hyenas are heard; during the day, the birds whistle with serenity, and the light of day shines through the windows, each day slightly differently…This constant duality becomes a source of inspiration for Bachar, obsessed as he is by this rustic environment which exacerbates the senses.The record has 11 tracks, all written on the spot, as well as a duo recorded in 2017 with the french singer Christophe -Jnoun (unreleased up to now).

Lightning Bolt’s Ride the Skies sees a true classic from the band’s catalog back in print for the first time in a long time. Arguably the first album where the duo truly nailed their patented sound, Ride the Skies saw Lightning Bolt refine the auditory chaos of their self-titled debut into something much more concise and direct, bulking out pieces with more muscular sonics without sacrificing the sheer velocity and wild energy that made their first release so exhilarating.

Une rencontre amicale, celle de l’amitié entre les percussions de Denis Fournier et les voix de Renata Roagna et de Pascale Labbé. C’était en 2011 au festival Jazzèbre à Perpignan.Une rencontre ce n’est pas quand on se croise, que l’on se parle, même si cela se fait avec sympathie, une rencontre – et celle-ci en fut une véritable – c’est quand on ne se reconnaît plus. Ou, plutôt, lorsque chacun devient une part de l’autre. Ici, que l’on ne s’y trompe pas, l’auditeur ne devient qu’à la mesure de ses moyens l’acteur d’une telle rencontre. Celle-ci se joue entre les musiciens. Et ce qui fait de “Paysage de Fantaisie” une “expérience” exceptionnelle et fascinante, c’est que les voix et les percussions deviennent indistinctes, non pas que les unes recouvrent les autres mais parce que les percussions sont comme les voix, elles chantent. Et les voix, elles, elles frappent, claquent, soulignent. Pourtant chacune – les percussions et les voix – demeurent inlassablement ce qu’elles sont, percussions et voix. On comprendra peut-être qu’il y a là de la magie à proprement parler.

great personnel !

Bandé-Gamboa is a project made up of two All-Star bands, created to reinterpret extremely rare or unreleased tracks from Guiné-Bissau and Cabo Verde, a project explicitly dedicated to the living memory of Amílcar Cabral, the intellectual force and strategist behind the independence of both countries, whose dream was to have them forever united.The project was created by Executive Producer/DJ/Digger Francisco “Fininho” Sousa and produced by Guts, with the aim of bringing to light musical compositions that either never had success despite their potential, or were never released at all. The band comprises of only outstanding musicians from both Guiné-Bissau and Cabo Verde, mixing older and younger generations. The tracks from Cabo Verde focus mainly on stretching the possibilities of musical languages within Funaná, and the tracks from Guiné-Bissau are a modern take on traditional rhythm Gumbé, rarely seen in stages worldwide. The album “Horizonte - Revamping Rare Gems From Guiné-Bissau and Cabo Verde” is in-between a compilation and a band recording, joining the knowledge of decade-long research on the music of both countries with the talent and creativity of world-class musicians.