une semaine très jazz avec Alfa Mist ou Kahil El’Zabar
Starting with Alfa Mist, therefore, one of the main representatives of a London scene that has been bubbling for ten years, around labels like Brownswood (created by DJ Gilles Peterson) or artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia or Emma-Jean Thackray. Characteristics: an uninhibited approach to jazz, due to the fact that all these young musicians come from hip-hop, drum’n’bass or house.
This is the case of this pianist who took over by sampling Madlib and J Dilla, only to realize that these figures of US rap had themselves sampled jazzmen. “It was by trying to understand hip-hop records that I came to jazz,” he says. Colorful harmonies on rhythmic grooves, we are here on the edge of funk, with even a few incursions on the side of pop or folk. Remain preserved a freedom in the expression and the construction of the pieces which describe Alfa Mist in the same camp as Herbie Hancock or Roy Ayers.
Funk and African music
Kahil El’Zabar’s approach is just as open. But given the age of this drummer-percussionist (69 years old on November 11), it is rather by going towards 70’s funk (he collaborated with Stevie Wonder and played in the group Defunkt) and African music that he is went to rediscover some of the roots of jazz. “In 1971-1972, I studied at the University of Ghana, he explains. It is from there that I created the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in 1973, the group with which I am in Europe. »
A quartet, in this case which combines its drums, brass instruments and West African instruments such as the balafon or the sanza. “We are working on the crossing points between the pentatonic scales of these instruments and the chromaticisms used in the jazz scales. It is in this approach that we play ”All blues” by Miles Davis. »
Even if the second percussionist, Justin Dillard, switches to keyboards when the group returns to more classic forms: be-bop, swing… And free-jazz? The roots of Kahil El’Zabar? “I still have a taste for researching sounds. That’s probably what gives me confidence in young musicians. Those in my group could be my children. (10 to 20 euros, lerocherdepalmer.fr)
Three concerts in Bordeaux
And elsewhere ? The Thelonious is once again asserting itself as the last jazz club in Bordeaux with three concerts: In situ, new Latin jazz group by pianist Franck Dijeau, Wednesday November 2, clarinettist Denis Girault with his new orleans quartet on Friday November 4, and drummer Roger Biwandu in a Ray Charles-Meters repertoire, bordering on soul and rhythm’n’blues on Saturday 5 (5 to 9 euros, thelonious-jazz-club-bordeaux.com).