Friday, March 31, 2017
The Belmondo's in Mediterranean French Riviera jazz
Belmondo's,
brothers, sons and father, and Yusef Lateef
&
Abstract:
Yvan, Lionel, Stéphane Belmondo
Yusef Lateef
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Un jazz de souffrance dans un écrin méditerranéen
(5 critiques en français)
Suffering, Morbid, Islamic, Mediterranean Jazz
(1 critique en anglais)
Intro in English
6 recent CDs
This is jazz and in spite of what John Steinbeck said jazz is the descendant, one of the descendants of Black African polyrhythm that was imported under duress and in suffering by slavers in their slave ships to America.
To survive – a very short life expectancy was their lot, hardly more than 21 years – they had to manage their suffering collectively. They just hummed their basically rhythmic musical African heritage so that all the slaves worked at the same speed and had the same results in the evening, thus avoiding the whippings of the slower slaves and the increase of the requirements for a standard day of work – generally of course from sunup to sundown in the fields which meant getting up before daybreak and going to sleep after nightfall – and even so whippings occurred, especially because it was some kind of game for the slavers, be they slave owners or just white supervisors.
African music was polyrhythmic and still is and the music that evolved from this heritage in America is polyrhythmic. And in our modern world it has become the global heritage of humanity. Many forms exist and jazz is one of them. Polyrhythmic like hell with the drums devised and invented for jazz with real, simple drums and cymbals and other percussions that can produce several rhythmic tempos since the two hands and the two feet are working simultaneously. The bass is another rhythmic instrument and of course you have the third or third and fourth instruments, no matter what they are that can have their own tempos. There are also quintets and sextets, but those are rarer formations.
You add to that the syncopated style and you have these various rhythms swinging not in unison but in coordination. If you take that heritage off this music you may have some “jazzy” music but it is not jazz.
A last detail is that generally every instrument will have a solo moment in the piece when the concerned musician will prove his virtuosity and will in all possible ways build some rhythmic patterns that will be tremendously faster and more intense than the basic rhythmic pattern that is kept in the back. That’s direct heritage from African music. [...]
Yusef Lateef
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Un jazz de souffrance dans un écrin méditerranéen
(5 critiques en français)
Suffering, Morbid, Islamic, Mediterranean Jazz
(1 critique en anglais)
Intro in English
6 recent CDs
This is jazz and in spite of what John Steinbeck said jazz is the descendant, one of the descendants of Black African polyrhythm that was imported under duress and in suffering by slavers in their slave ships to America.
To survive – a very short life expectancy was their lot, hardly more than 21 years – they had to manage their suffering collectively. They just hummed their basically rhythmic musical African heritage so that all the slaves worked at the same speed and had the same results in the evening, thus avoiding the whippings of the slower slaves and the increase of the requirements for a standard day of work – generally of course from sunup to sundown in the fields which meant getting up before daybreak and going to sleep after nightfall – and even so whippings occurred, especially because it was some kind of game for the slavers, be they slave owners or just white supervisors.
African music was polyrhythmic and still is and the music that evolved from this heritage in America is polyrhythmic. And in our modern world it has become the global heritage of humanity. Many forms exist and jazz is one of them. Polyrhythmic like hell with the drums devised and invented for jazz with real, simple drums and cymbals and other percussions that can produce several rhythmic tempos since the two hands and the two feet are working simultaneously. The bass is another rhythmic instrument and of course you have the third or third and fourth instruments, no matter what they are that can have their own tempos. There are also quintets and sextets, but those are rarer formations.
You add to that the syncopated style and you have these various rhythms swinging not in unison but in coordination. If you take that heritage off this music you may have some “jazzy” music but it is not jazz.
A last detail is that generally every instrument will have a solo moment in the piece when the concerned musician will prove his virtuosity and will in all possible ways build some rhythmic patterns that will be tremendously faster and more intense than the basic rhythmic pattern that is kept in the back. That’s direct heritage from African music. [...]
Research
Interests:
African Studies, Cultural Heritage, History of Slavery, Jazz Studies, Jazz History, Cultural Globalization, PTSS, Polyrhythms,
and Post
Traumatic Slavery Stress
Un air de famille sans trait original
BELMONDO FAMILY SEXTET –
MEDITERRANEAN SOUND – 2013
Soyons donc familiaux et familiers et rencontrons le père et ses deux fils,
de vrais frères, dans la musique dans laquelle les fils sont nés et ont grandi
et dans laquelle ils vont nous bercer pendant une heure. On est loin d’une
musique dramatique, morbide ou funéraire comme si souvent attaché à Lionel
Belmondo. Ici c’est la musique douce de la Riviera, de la Côte d’Azur, une côte
si paisible quand on ne voit que l’élite des villas de luxe, que le farniente
de ceux qui ne travaillent pas ou que peu, la joie et la facilité de vivre dans
un monde nonchalant car ceux qui peinent et suent pour que cette façade de vie
facile et insouciante puisse se développer et rutiler sont bien cachés, loin de
la Promenade des Anglais ou de la Croisette, loin des casinos qui pourtant ne
pourraient pas vivre sans leur travail mais on ne les voit, ces pauvres hères
du travail, que le matin tôt ou le soir pas trop tard quand ils vont travailler
pour l’élite (et souvent très tôt) ou reviennent du travail pour cette même
élite (et dans ce cas parfois très tard). Et dans certaines zones dites
industrielles, les activités de ce genre sont des activités hautement
supérieures en revenus et en prestige comme fabricant de torpille pour les
industries de l’armement, trop souvent directement liées à l’état avec des
salariés quasi-fonctionnaires de facto travaillant un gros maximum de 1200
heures par an, et parfois même bien moins, là où la moyenne des Français font
1600 heures et cela implique que certains font jusqu’à 2000 heures dans l’année.
C’est cette musique insouciante et légère que nous avons ici. C’est du jazz
bien sûr mais ce n’est pas le jazz auquel je donnerai des palmes d’honneur ou
des heures d’écoute car il n’apporte pas grand-chose si ce n’est le confort de
l’écoute justement, le silence de l’éthique, le calme du repos perpétuel, et
oui, une certaine mort de l’esprit et de la conscience. Le jazz blanc des
quartiers huppés de New York ou de Chicago, des hôtels et restaurants cinq
étoiles, des casinos de Las Vegas. Mais le jazz noir des quartiers populaires
de la Nouvelle Orléans, de New York (et c’est de moins en moins Harlem en
pleine mutation de classe supérieure), du Sud profond et du Midwest industriel
est absent de ce disque. Dommage. Comme je suis prêt à donner à Jimi Hendrix du
temps et de l’honneur et peu par contre aux Beach Boys, à David Bowie et peu
aux Boys Bands de toutes catégories qui sont juste capables de se mesurer à des
Sheila et même pas Petula Clark, à Sydney Bechet et même Dave Brubeck mais
certainement pas au jazz d’ascenseur, le célèbre Elevator Jazz que l’on peut
entendre et en fait subir sans dommage dans les ascensurs, bien sûr, mais aussi
dans de nombreux lieux publics musicalisés, autant je suis capable de ne pas
donner quoi que ce soit à ce jazz devenu une religion de la classe moyenne où
ils et elles montrent leurs cravates (le Slip Français en vitrine) et leurs jupettes
(lingerie fine sexy en prime).
Une exception d’une autre inspiration est l’emprunt (car toutes ces
musiques sont empruntées) à Jules Massenet, « Meditation », mis en
ordre jazzé, tendre, langoureux, gentil comme tout, une musique tout tout ce
que l’on peut attendre pour survivre à la langueur d’une vie sans vie, une
musique toutou ou pékinois pour mémé endormie et pépé assoupi. Il y a cependant
un peu de dépassement car même Jules Massenet rêvait de faire de la musique
pour autre chose que les salons bourgeois parisiens. Mais ce n’est pas assez
pour régénérer une heure de musique qui adoucit les mœurs. Cela me rappelle un
inspecteur primaire, vraiment primaire, il y a longtemps qui expliquait dans sa
conférence de rentrée aux instituteurs de l’école de Sainte Foy La Grande que
la musique était faite pour adoucir les sentiments des gens vers la paix, le
calme et l’entente universelle, bref le méchouis passé à la moulinette pour esprits
surtout pas critiques, éveillés et alertes. Une heure entière de ce discours de
petit intellectuel assis dans un fauteuil de velours m’avait endormi en son
temps, ce qui me valut une remarque acerbe que je n’avais pas écouté avec soin
et attention.
Voilà. Dommage mais cette musique ne me remue pas les méninges, ni mêmes
les hormones et me laisse plutôt froid et réservé comme si pris dans un bocal
de conserve qui a vieilli sur les rayonnages de ma cave depuis plusieurs années
et a perdu toute couleur dans l’obscurité et presque tout goût dans le verre,
mais a vieilli, vieilli sans fin comme un vin gaulois récupéré deux mille ans
plus tard, même si ce vin gaulois est plutôt romain, mais qu’importe l’ivresse
pourvu qu’on ait la bouteille
Lionel Belmondo ou Stéphane Belmondo peuvent faire mieux, beaucoup mieux,
surtout Lionel dans ses compositions mais ici ils ne sont que des
instrumentalistes de qualité pour une musique qui n’est qu’un trip, j’allais
dire une tripe, nostalgique d’une heure de musique avec papa. Notons que cela
donne du jazz une image phallocrate dont j’ai horreur : le jazz est une
musique d’homme qui se transmet de père en fils, et est faite pour des hommes.
Je sais, on doit bien trouver une femme par ci par là, mais dieux que cela est
rare aussi rare qu’une femme dans le grand conseil du Vice-Président Pence sur
les droits de la femme réuni à la fin mars 2017 à la Maison Blanche : c’est
clair PAS UNE SEULE. J’imagine que le jazz doit faire un peu mieux. Mais
combien de femmes dans un big band classique de jazz ? A quand un big band
de femmes ?
Tu rêves Jacquot ! Tu rêves debout un rêve de « gender fluidity ».
Restons raisonnable, s’il te plait.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Music for ever, the blind eyesight of the mind
Happy the one who can leave in due time
In
1974, I knew Pierre Boulez indirectly since I was reading the music treatises
of Pierre Schaeffer and some other books on the subject of modern music,
concrete music, noise if you want, but also plain music from classical to jazz,
from negro spiritual to Black and Soul, from the Beatles to The Who and AC/DC
or vice versa. I was ranting and raving on David Bowie the non-bipolar fluid
gender hermaphrodite. I was already waxing sentimental and dazzled by the
genius of Leonard Cohen, and yet I was trying to enter another world, the world
of a distorted stressed psyche that has managed to survive a couple of traumas
including the one of extreme eyesight impairment from birth to the age of six
without any medical assistance. You know: “Don’t Pass Me by!” And I had enjoyed
in all the twenty-nine years already behind me all that was sound, music,
languages, talk, drama, radio, and so many other things to listen to and to
hear even if seeing was not exactly the cup of tea in which I could rinse my “spectacles”
or glasses if you prefer.
Here
was my mind then (never ever published since 1974 and only read once to a small
audience)
DAVIS, CALIFORNIA, 1974
And
he looked right and he saw Lawrence
And
he looked left and he saw Terence
And
in front of him he saw Stephens
And
there and here someone else
Someone more
A
Face anonymous and placid
Amorphous and tacit
A
face with a nose and two eyes
With a pose and two lies
One
for him and one for the world
And
the pose of the comfort
Of the mind
We
had tried hard to break the lurid front-lights
To jump into the dark
pit
Of the
tender-footed neophytes
The
vertigo of a mosquito
Attracted by the bite
The fervid taste of blood
And the pounding grind of the slap
That
will forever stop the flight
Of
the buzzing nuisance
To
a sad inacceptance
The clown
was standing in front of his audience
And
then all of a sudden
The
bright imagination beam
Takes
in its tight spot the face
Of
what among others that is more
And yet nothing
more
That is for an instant
And already no
more
Of
him he flippantly likes
And he recreates in his mind
In his flesh
Recreates with his quivering eyelids
Good morning but don’t touch
me
I love you but don’t touch me
I want you but don’t touch me
I have you but don’t touch me
And
phantasy phantasizes the phantasmic phantasms
Of his desire
He
plays his stringy show
On
a stringent note of maybe I can
Maybe I could
Maybe
I might
Make him understand
The turn of my covetousness
The counterturn of my ravenousness
The stand of my desirousness
The clown
was standing in front of his audience
And got
no answer not even a clap
He
relapsed in his voyeurism
He
traced the fine of an ankle
The line of a leg
The mine of a
thigh
That shivers
at his breath
The
lip brushes the softness of the hairs
The
tongue waters the skin of his flesh
The
fingers meet into the width of a palm
Cupping
to retain the wine of the crotch
The milk of the breast
That
mango juice he pines for
And
lift it to his mouth
Furnishing
his palate
With the sultry caressing lime
Green like the never ripe passion of his
heart
Acid
like the never-moored
Overflying Dutchman
Of his dearth
Coating
his throat with the reviving paste
That springs high
That digs deep
That will never
germinate
And yet will
carry more fruit
Than the carob tree of yon
savannah
Dead-like and lifeless
Like a bug dried in the
moonshine
Silent
Dark
And fatefully
immobile
There
the cross of the long-legged roads
There
were the east and the west meet
In
the climax of their zenith
In
the apex of their noon
The
south emerges
Soothing and simmering
The
flames in the eyes
The
thirst in the mind
With
a taste of roundness
With
a flavor of boldness
A
bouquet and a fragrance
Heady
and exhilarating
Like
the foreplay of the skin
Over the sharp edge of the
blade
Of the brit milah
of fervid tradition
Ready
to penetrate
The soft sweet bread of the
flesh
The clown
was standing in front of his audience
And got
no answer not even a clap
From the
unreachable posse of indifferent masks
Coulardeau Jacques
Davis June 1974
– Pierre Boulez –
David Bowie –
– Leonard Cohen –
Blissful Recollection
of the Future
Music
wind of the mind
Crawling
creeping sliding
In out
through
Ears
eyes skin
Music
tempo of the soul
Beating
dancing swinging
Up down
gone
Hands
feet head
Music tempest
of the heart
Loving
hugging cuddling
Back
forth
All around
Chest
breasts
Elbows and arms
Sitting
in the dark gloom of the abbey church I listen to the opening of some symphony
that reverberates under the vault and among the columns.
A
butterfly flutters gracefully in the sunshine and perches itself on my knee in
some green meadow behind the summer house of the vacation.
Snowflakes
hover in the air and lightly cover the sidewalk of the still benighted street
of my city just one week before Christmas in the cold morning air.
On the
big square on a bench my street homeless friend wakes up every morning when I
come and every morning I give him half my ten thirty snack.
And all
the time some music resonates in my brain and tells me in a whisper between the
notes, among the keys and codas, a message that I will remember.
Ever!
“Go
your way and keep in your fists the acorn you saved last September, keep it for
the forlorn forgotten forsaken squirrel of an alley urchin that has no shelter
and that longs for love.”
An
acorn
A walnut
An apple
A pear
Shared
and split in half
Bestowed
and received
With a hungry smile
With two eager lips
With many ravenous teeth
Flat
sharp pure tonic C
The
schoolboy offers in one hand
The
sidewalk wanderer gathers with both hands
Raises
his eyes and locks them
On the blue
irises pierced with a dark question
Why?
A voice
from on high then vibrates like a tuning fork
“I
won’t pass you by, I promise!
“But
don’t vanish and go, ever!”
Jacques
COULARDEAU
Olliergues,
February 9, 2017
Un jazz un peu déjanté et fébrilement érotique
STEPHANE BELMONDO – THE SAME AS IT
NEVER WAS BEFORE - 2011
Un trompettiste, d’abord et avant tout qui a donc joué toute sa vie durant dans
des formations de jazz ou plus légères mais ici qui s’adonne aussi à des
morceaux qu’il porte de son propre nom, donc comme compositeur. Le titre
anglais est bien sûr une provocation. Comment prétendre faire dans le jazz
autrement qu’en anglais ? Mais comme dirait Steinbeck : « Prenez
n’importe quelle musique dans n’importe quel genre ou pays et improvisez dessus
en tempo syncopé et vous avez du jazz. » Il disait cela dans l’ancienne
Union Soviétique. C’est la pratique la plus courante de son frère Lionel, à
notre Stéphane, qui prend des morceaux classiques et les déjante en jazz, les
dé-jazze en quelque sorte.
Stéphane Belmondo reprend une pièce sur deux à des artistes de langue
anglaise et probablement américains. Et cela donne de la variété en style alterné
comme un tissu pied de poule.
Le premier morceau de Stéphane Belmondo est nostalgique en diable et m’évoque
le vertige contemplateur qu’on peut développer d’une cime de montagne plus ou
moins élevée quand devant vous, sous vos pieds ou presque, à vos pieds pour sûr
vous n’avez que le vide et l’envolée tombante si par malheur vous oubliez d’ouvrir
vos ailes musicales pour descendre en vol plané.
Stevie Wonder donne ensuite du rythme, de la joie, car lui il ne voit pas
le vide sous ses pieds et donc il peut danser sans s’arrêter quel que soit le
climat ou le paysage. Par contre Habiba de Kirk Lightsey introduit un sous-bois
plutôt simple pour la trompette ou autre cousine dérivée ou cousin mal luné qui
peut alors s’introduire et montre son caractère grincheux, hésitant, un peu
révolté ou insoumis qui se demande s’il doit aller à droite ou à gauche, s’il
doit s’envoler ou se poser, plonger ou faire la planche. Il joue même d’une
sorte d’écho de lui-même, une voix de tête de sa voix de poitrine. Très bonne
introduction à ce qui vient ensuite, le corps principal de ce ou cet ou cette
Habiba qui me rappelle Habib Bourguiba dans ma mémoire ancienne, mais en fait c’est
de l’anglais urbain comme ils disent là-bas de l’anglais presque vulgaire ou
argotique des quartiers dits populaires comme Belleville ou Ménilmontant. Et là
le sens est simple :
“The
meaning of Habiba is beloved, sweetheart or loved one, and it's incredibly accurate. A
Habiba is a stunning human being, with a brilliant sense of
humour and a personality that reminds you why it is a pleasure to be alive.
Habiba
can make you laugh when you've had the worst day. You can talk to her as though
you've known her your whole life, and trust her with anything. Habiba's are beautiful creatures, and if you know one then
hold on! You feel that the world is a brighter place simply by talking to her.
She is the kindest, most genuine individual, who you can be yourself - no
matter how ridiculous that is - with, and an absolute honour to have in your
life :)
Habiba is the kind of incredible friend that I would happily
share Tom Hiddleston with. Cheekbones and all. I love her so, so much.”
L’amour parfait mais que l’on est prêt à partager. Etrange concept de l’amour
qui est comme l’amour d’une bonne pièce de bœuf que l’on partage avec son
meilleur ami. Mais cet amour partagé devient fou avec la trompette qui s’emballe
comme un taureau devant un morceau de chiffon rouge. Il ferait bien de freiner
un de ces jours, de s’arrêter, mais rien à faire. Il danse comme un fou, un
dératé, un inconscient aux mains pleines qui se ruent vers le ravin comme un bison
poussé par le troupeau en folie et qui va aller s‘écraser au fond d’un ravin.
Les charognards viendront après comme la batterie, tambours et cymbales qui s’en
donnent à cœur joie du silence de la bête. Là aussi, il y a de l’amour qui se
clôt par quatre notes de piano.
Stéphane Belmondo nous donne alors une de ses compositions et on retrouve
le ton un peu lent et hésitant mais nostalgique, presque triste malgré le titre
« free for three » qui devrait être enthousiasmant car trois ça tourne
en diable comme une valse en Sainte Trinité et libre c’est encore plus tournant,
mais non pas tourner de l’œil d’émoi alangui mais tourner comme une toupie
au bord de la falaise, et on reçoit en priorité l’appel du vide et de la chute.
On hésite, d’un orteil ou de deux, vais-je sauter, plonger, sombrer ou
réfléchir à deux fois ou simplement m’abandonner au plaisir de commencer la chute
en oubliant les remontrances d’un vieux père que l’on doit penser la fin avant
de commencer. Mais le fils et frère n’écoute rien sinon l’appel du tambour.
Mais une fois ne vient jamais seule et Stéphane Belmondo nous donne une autre
composition de lui qui commence avec les vagissements d’un bébé et un solo de
contrebasse aux cordes piqués, pincées et tordues comme il se doit. Puis cymbales,
piano et nous voilà parti et la trompette prend le lead, le lied, la tête et le
chant. Et la lumière sur Rita tombe sèche et langoureuse, elle sera humide plus
tard. Pour le moment elle est jouisseuse de la vue voyeuriste et le piano
piaffe un peu d’impatience. Mais Rita n’est pas vraiment à prendre, du moins
pas encore. La trompette se fait un peu plus attirante, moqueuse, attirante,
appelante, et même un peu exhibitionniste. Alors piano me prendras-tu ou pas.
Plutôt pas que oui mais pas question de fuir hurle la trompette, taratata. Mais
rien n’y fait le piano a perdu son latin et son envie j’imagine à cette
trompette dominante. Il se noie plus ou moins dans la contrebasse comme si
pianoter dans la contrebasse pouvait couper le nœud gordien de l’impossible
rencontre d’un piano un peu trop réservé et d’une trompette devenue un peu trop
aguichante comme si on était place Clichy quatre minute après minuit, demandez
à Stephen King, il sait tout ce qui peut arriver à cette heure fatidique. Et la
trompette revient pour une dernière absinthe sur un sucre et la batterie ajoute
un peu d’eau sur le sucre pour diluer l’absinthe et en faire un jus de fruit
désorbitant. Musique parisienne en diable, du Paris populaire et du Paris
érotique pour ne pas dire pornographique.
Matt Denis a alors rendez-vous avec nos musiciens et c’est le cas de la
dire Everything Happens to Me. Et là ma chère trompette tenez-vous bien et ne
dérangez pas l’étal du magasin. Calme, lentement, avancez d’un pas plus sûr qu’il
n’y paraît et faites donc que le destin qui est derrière vous, vous soutienne
et vous pousse vers des extrémités, des fins, des finalités inconnues et
nouvelles. Mais la langueur paresseuse de notre trompette résiste à la poussée
et ne ressent pas l’appel alors elle se prend d’une jouissance personnelle sur
place, tournant sur un pied et un talon et se demandant s’il n’y aurait pas un
ciel d’aube qui puisse se révéler dans la nuit de ce boulevard à la porte du
Cimetière du Père Lachaise incapable de pousser le portillon ou de passer le
mur pour enfin se trouver dans la seule chose qui arrivera un jour pour sûr, de
jour comme de nuit, la mort certaine et la fin en terre ou en fumée comme si
rien ne pouvait dépasser cette limite triste. Ah quoi bon pourvu qu’on ait un
verre de vin j’imagine, en cinq notes.
Mais Stéphane Belmondo se devait bien d’en appeler à Dieu et son Godspeed n’a
rien de bien rapide ni divin mais bien plus diabolique, répétitif, lancinant,
méchant même. Il y a un charme dans cette titillation sans fin comme si on
était dans un concours de chatouillis et de gratouillis qui finit heureusement
avant d’exploser.
Wayne Shorter veut nous prêcher l’unité dans son United, une unité comme pour
du square dancing disjoncté et qui n’en finit pas de ne pas se trouver. Il part
ici et là dans un jazz plus urbain mais ne se retrouve quand même pas. Unis,
nous sommes peut-être mais cela devient fébrile, intense, prenant, emportant,
impératif, pressant, injonctif et tout sauf conditionnel. Le mouvement nous
prend les pieds et le corps et nous déboulons sur l’avenue principale de je ne
sais quelle New York, Nunited, Nyounited, Newnited. Le piano se croit dans un
speakeasy alcoolique et il nous enivre de ses touches noires et blanches, de
son clavier qui ondule dans notre ivresse. La batterie nous tanne la peau et le
dos comme si nous étions quelques esclaves méritant le fouet, et la trompette
peut revenir avec un chat à neuf queues pour ajouter quelques griffures à notre
dos balafré de fouettage salé. Et on retombe dans le petit air mélodique du
début comme si de rien n’était, comme si ce fouettage n’avait été qu’un
exercice de jouissance dans l’exquise douleur de ce qui ne dure qu’un temps
toujours trop court.
Et nous finissons avec Stéphane Belmondo qui nous hante maintenant et est
hanté de la même façon. Hanté, hantant, bref pris d’un spectre en forme de
trompette et de quelques chaînes pianistiques en prière. Voyez-vous le
revenant, le fantôme de je ne sais quelle nuit folle au matin arrivé et qui se
doit de se demander ce qui a bien pu arriver dans ce monde nocturne. Et le
piano fait ses vocalises sur nos nerfs tirés à blanc. Vous mourrez bien ce
matin, petit frère mal appris et spectral. Mais nous en parlerons dans quelques
heures quand j’aurai repris du poil de la bête. Et après une pause tout reprend
dans des gargouillis et un équilibre retrouvé. Le fantôme de la gueule de bois
est parti et il ne reste plus qu’un appétit à en mourir de faim. Et bien dansez
donc maintenant.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Islam Musical Contemplatif
LIONEL & STÉPHANE BELMONDO –YUSEF
LATEEF – INFLUENCE - 2005
This double album is probably essential for the career of
Lionel Belmondo, performing here with his brother Stéphane and an ad hoc group
of musicians that associates the regular musicians Lionel Belmondo uses, plus
his brother and some coming along with and for Yusef Lateef, a jazzman from the
USA recently deceased, whose life and career span from Tennessee where he was
born to Massachusetts where he died. He represents a jazz of his own that has
impacted Lionel Belmondo’s work tremendously, and yet. . .
As soon as the first notes of this recording we have a tone
we had not found yet in Belmondo’s music so far in our discovery. A light,
florid, rich, deep, joyous and even blissfully ecstatic music that sweats and
radiates some happiness, joy and not the morbid mortiferous contemplation we found
so often in Lionel Belmondo’s music. But due to the dates, is this mortiferous
and morbid style a later style, a style due to something Lionel Belmondo has
lost? For sure this here recording is full of light and sunny rays of pleasure.
Without entering all
the tracks one after the other, I would prefer giving you some impressions
rather than a scholastic manual. The presentation booklet that comes along with
the CDs is good enough for that and signed by Vincent Bessières who is a
journalist at Jazzman, a French magazine on the subject of jazz and
jazz performance. Founded in October 1992, it was merged with Jazz Magazine in September 2009 in response to the
worldwide economic downturn and the general loss of revenue among music
magazines. It was advertised as "the magazine for all jazz." Jazzman began as a free supplement in Le monde de la musique. It
published its first independent number in March 1995. It is not clear whether the
separation was a divorce or a way to expand the jazz publication by making it
autonomous. The booklet is in both French and English. I have chosen to favor
English.
Bessières
says somewhere the musicians have chosen the blues as their style. I am not
sure because for me the blues requires a voice, a singer, words to express the
blues itself and the music is generally not jazzy and it is certainly most of
the time particularly sad, suffering, crying and weeping, howling at times with
despair. Here the music is at most hesitating between having a continuous melodic
line or just impressionistic touches like in the second track: “Si tout ceci n’est
qu’un pauvre rêve” (If all this is nothing but a pitiful dream). The title by
Lili Boulanger originally here arranged by Lionel Belmondo has been made
luminous in its hesitation, the search of some elevation but no doubt ever, it
will come from contemplating the inside dimension of this music that is never
erratic but only curiously stumbling and touching around to look for a door, an
uplifting golden path in the forest of some urban maddening crowd that does not
madden you at all.
This
recording owes a lot to Christophe Dal Sasso who gave two tracks on the first
CD. He could be qualified as sad but it does not succeed and I will then
consider that his half smile of half happiness is in fact the detachment of a
contemplative man in front of this world. What could make his music sad makes
it in fact restful and peaceful. We just let ourselves slip slowly into this
music and we enjoy the rest we find there, the abandon and nonchalance that are
seeping from the notes and the instruments. Are we lying on a deckchair or
chaise lounge on some beach or gently rolling ship on an oily sea without any
wind, apart from a light breeze that cannot even fill our sails? Just let’s
look at the gulls, at the sun, at the dust dancing in the sunlight, let’s draw the
curtains of our mental bedroom and let us recline in the velvety featherbed. Is
there any regret at times not to be part of the game, part of that outside
world of pure excellence and enjoyment without any exhilaration?
There
might be a desire behind this music by Christophe Dal Sasso and his use of
percussions to make rolling balls dance from right to left and then open some
window to some plaintive but aerial and sky like azure flute that could be some
Indian musician in the morning challenging the percussions, the drums, the
whole of nature and summoning the deepest and most secret animal spirits of our
world, those we never listen to and we always want to meet but without the courage
to say, OK yes, let the wolves come dancing with me, let the frogs croak with
me, let some other deer or bears come celebrate life with me. That’s when a more
metallic sound and a humming voice appear, if it is a voice, and deeper, more
somber sounds come up, rise, swell in the sky on a canapé of metal percussion,
cymbals and their metallic sweeping, bells, we are confronted to the birth a
world, of a mythology, of a future because any birth means a future that will
drop on the side what is not important for that future like the shouts and
yells of crowds. The piano brings in the responsibility of life and government.
And a saxophone or clarinet or whatever brass instrument comes and amplifies
that social forest of responsible enjoyment of what is to come and we call for.
The bass can then temporize with that future. And something lurks out of the
wings and inflates itself into some existence You are, new-born god, the master
of this world and we are your servants, your believers, your powerful
intercessors to life and we become the echo of your peace of divine mind and that
makes us divine too. Oh! Friend of mine that moved away, that is trekking along
some new territory, your voice is still reverberating in my mind and that voice
is like a divine message telling me what to think. It is the few isolated notes
of a bird’s call and song. And then it can become the recollection of the
pleasure of loving you and the pleasure of still loving you though you are
blazing some trails in some new forest and a trumpet tells me you are strong,
manly, powerful and sure of yourself like some calamus growing in Walt Whitman’s
pond in his contemplation of the masculine heart of the conquerors of wild
territories. That music is an ode to joy and bliss and orgasmic climax, all
contemplative in the mind of the beholder. To contemplate is to have. Just
enjoy that contemplation that is your possession, that rich possession that
makes you another person and yet the same. That’s how a friend and his love can
transform your mind even in his absence because he is always there in your brain.
Can’t you feel him squirming when you speak of him?
If you
find Christophe Dal Sasso slightly liquorish and satiating, maybe too much, too
hypnotic, just take a rest with Lionel Belmondo and his saxophone. No problem;
you can go drunk on that heady music that titillates in you the dark humors
that have to come out to become sunny and happy. He is the pleasure bringer,
the hawker in the street that tries to hawkishly sell you the shiny trinkets
you do not need and yet that will be so useful for you to dance all night as if
you were happily in some luxurious and lustful reception in some palace
imagined by Lestat de Lioncourt somewhere in Auvergne. Don’t let your fingers
be taken up by these strings. Resist the envy and the desire to be nice with the
hawker who is a predator like his name says and he will draw all he can out of
you to let you go on your wooly legs totally empty of all your blood. You will
sit on a public bench and you will admire your new acquisition of empty air.
And that’s
when across the street on the second CD Yusef Lateef comes and transform our
urban stroll into a rainforest chase for unknown species. Chattanooga,
Tennessee, is the destination. Is it Chattanooga today or the Chattanooga of
the times of slavery? Is it the past or the future? To ask the question is sure
to never get an answer. Just enjoy the trip.
I guess Southern Comfort is next on that road to the south
but definitely with an urban background from the north.
But it is a day to wake some vast
ideal from morning to dusk. Iqbal dominates the whole suite and it brings
together so many things, in 2005 and even more today. The great and mythic by
now Sir
Muhammad Iqbal, widely known as Allama Iqbal, was a poet, philosopher, and
politician, as well as an academic, barrister and scholar in British India who
is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. Born: November 9, 1877, Sialkot, Pakistan. Died: April 21, 1938, Lahore,
Pakistan. There is in this music something that goes beyond the slowness and
nonchalance of the south. There is something that enters the Muslim mind of
Yusef Lateef, a Muslim mind that comes from his reference to Pakistan, an
aspiration to develop, an aspiration to thrive but also a tremendous fear that
behind the green canopy of the trees there may be a very aggressive and violent
sky and yet let the canopy of leaves and birds in their nest lock itself up
onto the shady happiness of here inside this temple and let our words open our
hearts to the divine beyond this closed up cell of nature. That divine grandeur
is not outside this cell; it is not outside our own minds. It is inside our
minds and we have to cultivate that call, that language, our prayers, our
demands, our request from God who does not have any obligation and would even
consider this request as some kind of undue begging. Do we have the right to
beg from God for small little advantages and presents;
We should be the ones offering and not the
ones being granted any offering. And by the ones offering I feel in that music
how we are supposed to let ourselves be taken and we are becoming the offering
itself this music makes to the giant monsters of life. We are the offering on
the altar, on the pyre assembled for the sacrifice, we are the ones open, entirely
open and receptive to the blade of the knife that makes us the redeeming
sacrifice music brings up to the world to salvage this humanity. This jazz is
an expiating sacrifice to save the world from its evilness, its monstrosity,
its hawkish carrion eating raptors that are soaring and circling high in the sky
over us, their preys. But strangely enough Yusef Lateef tries to convince us
there is nothing to be afraid of and we can just sit back and lie low and enjoy
the orgasmic communion with nature and with the duration of things and the cosmos,
of the whole universe. That music is so pacifying, so smoothly caressing that
we may forget the world outside is not that nice after all. And Allama Iqbal becomes
an Iqbal sports champion, or an Iqmal child overworked and exploited by some
wild capitalism in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan. There are so many
Iqbal in this world.
But if we come down from this vision we
come to some may fest on the village green, with pipes and some dancing elves. The
world is so beautiful when we look at it with the eyes of someone who has
satisfied his divine duties and has thus rebuilt his ability to just take the world
the way it comes and enjoy it in pleasure and bliss along the dancing crowds.
Don’t wonder who this Brother John is. He certainly is not Saint John and his
Apocalypse; there is nothing apocalyptic in this music, nothing menacing, just
multifarious and multi-voice hymns and canticles dedicated to the peace of mind
you reach when you concentrate your mind on the divine. This music is so Muslim
in all possible ways. There is no contradiction that is not reduced like a
broken bone that heals all by itself with the bandage of belief, faith and
submission to the truth of on-high, of beyond all the dangers that are not of
life but of some other world that has to be forgotten and nullified.
There is nothing bluesy in this music,
nothing sad, mortiferous and morbid. Why on earth has Lionel Belmondo later on
developed his morbid and death-loving style? There probably is no answer to
that question. But his productions of 2011 and 2012 are in complete
contradiction with this radiating bright luminous maybe slightly unempathetic
style. Happiness is at the bottom of the flowery meadow like in The Sound of
Music. It is well known, provided the world is the microcosm of Switzerland
untouched and unconcerned by the violence outside its borders. I must say I
miss the drama and the tragedy of so much jazz that pushes its roots and
branches into the compost of centuries of inhumane and barbaric history of
slavery and exploitation. That’s maybe this contemplation of monstrosities from
under the crystal dome of protected relaxation that is so common in Bordeaux
and its region, in the Landes forest and on the lakes there that explains the
coming together of two jazzmen who are so different.
The world is beautiful and life is marvelous.
Let’s enjoy them both till we are drunk with an overdose of sugar and alcohol.
