Album review

Julien Lourau

The Unstoppable Rise

Paris 

15/02/2002 - 

Jazz saxophonist Julien Lourau is currently back in the music spotlight with a new Latin-style album entitled The Rise. This sensual, upbeat – and highly personal – album, dreamt up on the sax star's recent tour of South America, is dedicated to Monsieur Lourau senior, whose death influenced the album's title as well as its content.

Over the last decade Julien Lourau has established himself as a major name on the jazz circuit. Now, following on from the Groove Gang's explosive cocktail of free jazz and funk and his recent electro-jazz project Gambit, Lourau returns to his acoustic roots, proving he's every bit as much a musician as a project organiser! RFI/Musique met up with Julien on a cold winter's day in Paris and enjoyed a cosy chat over a steaming cup of coffee.

RFI Musique: The saxophone is pretty much omnipresent on this new acoustic album of yours.
Julien Lourau: Yes, I was really keen to have the tenor sax at the core of things this time round. I think the tenor sax fits in a lot better in an acoustic context than when you're working with electric or electronic sounds where it gets used a bit against its own nature. Actually, when I'm working with electric instruments I tend to use the alto sax instead because it packs a lot more punch… I was really keen to work with the tenor sax again. And I think the special sound on this new album stems a lot from the fact that, in terms of drawing breath, I tried to pull the air up from lower down in my body than usual. I tried to go deep down in my stomach so the notes would come out higher!

This is the first time in your career that you've released such an intimate album. You've even included an extract from your personal diary in the accompanying CD booklet.
Yes, that's true. I really wanted to include the text you're talking about (in which he talks about his father's death and its aftermath) to give people some idea of where my new album's coming from. I think the text gives some feeling of my general mood over the past two years and the experiences I've lived through.

Is the title of your new album, The Rise, a direct allusion to your father's death?
Yes and that's what I try and enlarge upon in the extract from my diary, actually. In the title The Rise there's obviously an idea of elevation. There's this notion of my father floating up into the sky – and the anecdote I recount on the album of him slowly disappearing through this layer of mist gives a peaceful dream-like quality to the scene, but at the same time there's this undercurrent of anguish and distress…

But The Rise isn't a melancholic album, is it?
No, I didn't go into the studio with the idea of recording a sad, downbeat album. I didn't want to record a requiem or anything. I tried to find an element of hope in the melodies I composed for this album, something that would fit in with the notion of elevation and open onto something new. I didn't want to end up with that heavy cloying kind of melancholy, you know, the kind of music you listen to and it just knocks you out in your armchair for the rest of the day. You know, the kind of deep, dark heavy melancholy which makes you cry the tears you've got to cry – although that's one way of sublimating your emotions, I suppose!

Was your Gambit tour of Latin America in 1999 also a major emotional moment?
Yes – it certainly wasn't a tourist trip in any case! It was a pretty major tour, actually, with ten of us on the road together, going round all the Latin American capitals… There was an incredible energy between us all, a real buzz. But at the same time it was a pretty exhausting trip and by the end of things you're so tired that you go into this kind of semi-conscious trance, like you're there but not there really…It's weird, it's like you're always running ahead of yourself or something.

What were the most significant moments of the tour in terms of making contact with another culture?
Well, it wasn't so much the actual physical contact with other musicians, you know, swapping phone numbers over a drink, that kind of thing, then calling them back… What really made an impact on me was seeing things in their proper context. You know, there I was in South America hearing Latin American music in a bus or a restaurant. And that brought me directly into contact with a certain musical idiom… It was basically about getting an artistic impression of things that you can use later.

What did you do when you got back from your South American tour?
I went on another trip, but this time round it was a more personal voyage of discovery which took place inside. I spent a year living in my father's house in Rambouillet (near Paris) where I grew up… I really wanted to spend some time there before the house went on the market. I had to sell the house really because it was just too big and it needed so much work done to it. It would have been impossible to keep it on. Anyway, living there really plunged me back into all these adolescent memories… It was a great way of working actually. I was able to sit down and work on my music whenever I felt like it and then, when I needed a break, I went off for a long walk in the forest and blew the cobwebs out of my mind! Being in Rambouillet was a totally different lifestyle from Paris. In Paris you're always rushing from one meeting to the next - and whenever you rehearse your scales at home you get the neighbours charging upstairs all red in the face and about to explode! In the end you have to get on the phone and book time in a studio just so you can rehearse in peace!
Eight of the eleven tracks on your new album are your own original compositions…
Yes, that's true. I really set out to enjoy myself on this album – and that's exactly what I did! The other tracks on the album really fitted in with what I wanted too. I'd wanted to record a traditional Spanish song for some time now. Anda, Jaléo is a really old Spanish number, which came back into fashion during the civil war. Then, in the 'Argentinean' part of the album, there's a Cuban bolero sung by Elvita and the album finishes off with Boyan Z's blues…

Talking of Argentinean rhythms, as we were a moment ago, there's a great feeling of complicity with Minino Garay on your new album. It almost feels like you've toned him and his music down a bit, in fact!
Minino is a very sensitive musician, you know, and what's great about him is that he knows how to adapt his playing to any given style… Minino and I go back a long way now. It's natural that there should be a real feeling of complicity between us. It was Minino who auditioned the Latin musicians for my new album, actually.

There's a totally different side to The Rise, of course, with another rhythm section made up of Henri Texier (double bass), Ari Hoening (drums) and Boyan Zulfikarpasic (piano) ?
Yes, and then there's another couple of tracks featuring Maxime Zampieri on drums and Fred Chiffoleau on double bass. Their rhythm has a fresher, 'greener' feel to it, which is just as interesting in its own way.

It's interesting that Henri Texier is one of the guests on your new album. It must have been nice to be the one inviting him this time round!
You know, jazz is an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation. It's all very well studying in schools and attending jazz master-classes and things, but the best way to learn is to work with the generation that has gone before you. Henri's told me so many stories, imparted so much history to me… It's through having direct contact with people like that that you make progress in your own work. You learn through talking with other musicians and playing together.
It gave me a lot of pleasure to be the one inviting Henri to guest on my album this time round, because he's used me in so many of his own projects. I thought it would be interesting for him to come and work on something I'd cooked up for a change. I thought he'd fit in really well with the music I had in mind too…
I already knew exactly what styles of music I wanted to use on the album. So what I had to do next was to put together the best rhythm section to play on such and such a track. I never really thought in terms of a group. What mattered was to make each track as perfect as possible.

And how did your vocalist, Elvita, get involved?
Well, it was Minino who came up with the idea of doing a bolero. The bolero's really the South American jazz equivalent of a ballad, I suppose. So I played as if I were accompanying a singer on You Don't Know What Love Is or some other jazz classic. I didn't have to wrack my brains or anything, you know!
In Argentinean tradition boleros are serenades where the musicians stand under a young girl's window at night. You've got these three guitarists singing boleros to her. This particular one dates back to 1946. Contiguo en la distancia is a classic love song, really, about being together even though you're apart. And the important thing to get right on the track is the emotion and the ambience. I really have to take my hat off to Elvita, by the way, she's a brilliant Venezuelan musician!

Every album has its own story, of course, and this time round it feels like you've gone back to your own personal style, putting the emphasis less on the idea of a group – as you did in the past with Le Groove Gang – and more on your own compositions…
Yes, that's exactly how I feel about this album. When I worked with Le Groove Gang what happened when I sat down to write was I'd think in terms of the different personalities involved and I'd try to come up with an original style of instrumentation. But this time round, it's different, I must admit you've put your finger on something there!

You just appeared in concert at Le New Morning. What does it mean to you to play at such a legendary Paris venue?
Well, I'd say that of all the venues in Paris Le New Morning means the most to me. When you play there you really feel the spirit of all the great musicians who've played there before you, people like Archie Shepp in the 90s, John Zorn, Bill Frisell… Le New Morning is the place where I've acquired my own musical culture over the years, in fact. It's not like any other music venue. When I play there my heart always skips an extra beat, I always feel a bit of extra emotion, a few extra nerves… I guess in New York you've got The Knitting Factory - and The Blue Note's another legendary venue too, but it hasn't necessarily got the cosiest ambience, you know!

Valérie  Nivelon

Translation : Julie  Street