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The sound of Erik Truffaz
Jazz fusion straight from the heart
Paris
22/11/2001 -
Stepping out into a Paris bathed in stunning autumnal light, I head off towards the Louvre for my rendez-vous with Erik Truffaz, aka the amiable precursor of the new French jazz movement. Settling into a café partway between the Louvre and the Opera, I spot Truffaz's long, lanky figure gliding towards me across the room. He sits down at out table, grinning, bright-eyed and looking for all the world like an eternal adolescent. In fact, it's quite a shock to see Truffaz off stage without a trumpet in his hand, so accustomed are we to seeing him hunched over his instrument beneath the spotlights' glare, playing as if he and his trumpet were welded together unto death.
New group
Over coffee talk naturally turns to the recording of Truffaz's new album, Mantis, for which the French jazz star felt compelled to form a totally new group. "The important thing for me when I get a group together," Truffaz explains, "is the musical mix. Each of the musicians involved in the new album had his own strong personality, but what you have to work towards is getting these individual personalities to merge and express themselves in the same musical universe." And when Truffaz talks about strong personalities, it's no understatement. The ambitious, and totally unprecedented, jazz line-up he put together in the studio juxtaposed electric guitarist Manu Codjia and double-bass player Michel Bénita with Philippe Garcia, the one-man drum wonder from Cosmik Connection.
In fact, over the past few years Truffaz had been doing a spot of talent scouting on his own account, sounding out musicians from a diverse range of backgrounds and dreaming of new fusion possibilities. "I knew I wanted to experiment with a completely different sound on the new album," he says, "And that's why I really wanted to have Manu Codjia on electric guitar. I heard Manu play at the 'Concours de la défense' in 1998 and he gave a really excellent performance. I knew back then that I had to end up working with him one day." When Truffaz and Codjia team up for a trumpet/electric guitar duo on the new album, the result is Saisir, a sublime track where the pair enter into a sort of musical osmosis, spurring one another on to some higher plane and charting previously unexplored rhythmic territory.
Spontaneity was the order of the day in the studio and Truffaz insists that he tried to give "everyone as much freedom as possible. What I said to the group before we got down to rehearsing together was that I wasn't really sure what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want! The way we worked was I'd throw out a few ideas or musical themes, the guys would pick up on them and we'd start playing and if I didn't like what I heard, I'd say so immediately and we'd try something else. Working that way meant the musicians could come up with something I'd never even thought of, which sometimes ended up sounding a lot better than what I'd originally had in mind."
Philippe Garcia, whom Truffaz met at a music festival in Tunisia, brought his own special verve and energy to the project. "I loved working with him (Garcia), because he's always so full of beans," says Truffaz, "What I'd do was get him to listen to rhythmic formulas I'd come up with, then he went away and worked on his own ideas. I ended up keeping some of his propositions too, like on the track Saisir for instance."
Garcia, a drummer who has soaked up a wide range of musical influences – and most notably all the innovative new beats that have surfaced on the French electro scene in the past few years - brought a wealth of new ideas to Mantis. He also contributed one of his own compositions, Parlophone, a track which buzzes with the excitement of station waiting rooms, airport departure lounges and new destinations. What's more, Garcia's precision drumming works brilliantly well with the double-bass played by Michel Bénita, a musician from a more classical background who has nevertheless proved himself open to exploring new styles and combinations.
Vocal magic …
As on previous albums, Truffaz has continued to integrate vocals into his innovative jazz mix. Whereas his former group featured freestyle 'tchatching' from rapper Nya (Jakson), this time round Mounir Troudir puts in a guest appearance on the traditional Berber love song, Magrouni. Troudir launches into the song a cappella, but Garcia's hypnotic jungle beat soon catches up with him and then Codjia comes in, picking out a delicate melody on his electric guitar. Needless to say, Magrouni has scored a huge hit within France's professional music community – and Imothep, the turntable whizzkid from Marseilles rap group IAM, has already whipped up a catchy remix of the song! (Imhotep's jazz/hip hop fusion is due to be released as a single or EP at the beginning of 2002, in fact).
… and Arab lutes
Meanwhile, Tunisian maestro Anouar Brahem also brings the haunting strains of the ud (the traditional Arab lute) to Mantis. This particular collaboration was one Truffaz had dreamt of bringing about for many years. "I've spent a lot of time listening to Anouar's records," says Truffaz, "and I'm a really big fan of his music. … In fact, I wanted to hear the sound of his 'ud so much, I didn't even feel like playing myself." As a mark of respect for Brahem's work, Truffaz composed a special track for him, blending the nostalgia-charged sound of the 'ud with the trumpet. The fusion flowed naturally in the studio, Truffaz says, because he feels his collaboration with Brahem was, in a way, preordained. "It's amazing," he says, Before meeting Anouar I'd written this song called Betty which turned out to be the mirror image of his song, "Le Conte de l'incroyable beauté". If you listen to them closely, they're exactly the same song, but neither of us set out to copy the other in any way!."
As far as his new album is concerned, Truffaz assumed control of things from A to Z. He not only took the initiative of forming a new group for Mantis, but also supervised an album of remixes, selecting which tracks would be reworked and which artist he'd invite to do so. (It was this remix project which led to Truffaz working with Pierre Henry, the 'grandfather' of the current electro scene who agreed to whip up an analog reworking of the track More).
"I refuse to be 'conditioned' in any way," says Truffaz, "I can't bear the idea of having other people tell me what to do. As far as the new album was concerned, it was me who picked up the phone and booked the studio and it was me who was responsible for producing the whole thing. The problem in this business is that as soon as things start to take off a bit, someone else jumps on board and starts organising everything. And that way you end up losing your independence before you know it."
There appears to be little danger of that in Truffaz's case. "Linked" but not signed to the legendary Blue Note label, Truffaz has not been obliged to sacrifice an iota of his artistic independence. Nicolas Pflug, director of Blue Note's jazz section, insists that "Erik acts as his own producer – and I have total confidence in him in that respect. I think he can be considered as a real precursor in the music world. He invented a totally new sound on The Dawn and The Corner, then wrapped that period up with Revisité. Everyone expected Erik to keep on exploring the drum'n'bass vein. But no, now he's suddenly turned up and taken everyone by surprise with a new group the like of which has never existed before!"
And it is this spirit of novelty and innovation which ensures Truffaz's ongoing popularity on the French music scene. Over the past few years the French jazz trumpeter has played to packed audiences up and down the country and earlier this year tickets were completely sold out for his gigs at La Cigale and the Olympia in Paris (as they are for his upcoming concerts at Le New Morning*). Meanwhile, Truffaz's album sales are on the up at home as well as abroad. Indeed, France's star trumpeter has clocked up average sales of 60,000 copies per album (and, let's face it, 10,000 copies in the jazz world is the equivalent of 100,000 copies in pop!) In other words, apart from electro/jazz artist St Germain, Erik Truffaz is far and away the most successful artist in the "new French jazz" category.
Truffaz remains extremely modest about his new-found success, however, saying "I don't have any particular aptitude when it comes to songwriting, you know. It takes ages for me to compose a track and I generally end up throwing a lot of stuff in the bin at the end of the day. But then I think that's a good thing. In my opinion, people don't throw enough away – you should only keep about 20% of the music you write!"
On his latest album, Truffaz appears to have focussed on paring his music down to a pure, spiritual core, working towards what he defines as "the essential mystery of it all." "If it weren't for the mystery at the heart of the work," he says, "I don't think I'd have any interest in making music at all. What I feel I'm striving towards is something that comes from the heart and connects me to heaven and earth!" And on his new album Mantis (named after a "wise man" Truffaz met on a trip to the U.S.) France's favourite trumpeter offers up a musical prayer for non-believers everywhere.
Valérie Nivelon
Translation: Julie Street
Mantis (Blue Note-EMI) has just been released in France, Switzerland, Belgium and the rest of Europe.
Eric Truffaz is currently on a national tour of France (until end of November). Fans can catch him at Le New Morning* in Paris (November 26th, 27th and 28th)
03/11/2010 -
27/11/2008 -
23/04/2007 -
22/05/2003 -
