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Eric Truffaz rocks !
French Jazz Star Blows the Trumpet for Rock
Paris
22/05/2003 -
RFI/Musique: Can you tell us something about the genesis of your new album ?Eric Truffaz: Well, basically it began with a series of jams back in April 2002. I recorded all the sessions and then we chose the best moments from there. We went on to develop these over the next nine months and then we played them in concert together in December. We did five shows in Lyon and four in Rennes. After that we headed off to our usual place, the Flon studios in Lausanne.
It's funny, a little while ago I was reading this interview with Radiohead and they go about things exactly the same way. It really changes everything, you know. I think the dynamic of our previous albums was far inferior to the live stuff. Our work in the studio revolves around trying to give the impression that the studio dynamic can be just as good as the stage.
So how did you go about 'capturing' this live atmosphere ?
I record absolutely everything when we're rehearsing and I always make recordings of concerts too. The problem is, re-listening to things we decided that our albums just didn't have the same dynamic as the recordings. This led to us putting a lot of things into question. Anyway, we got in touch with this other sound engineer called Philip Weiss, the guy we did the mixing with and we sat down and put our heads together. (Truffaz marks a long pause). One of the answers we came up with to try and improve the dynamic was to use a system that captured the atmosphere of the room without separating the musicians too much. We tried to record things together as much as possible, especially the rhythm sections.
Another new thing we tried was transferring our digitally recorded sessions onto analogue tapes. That really breathed new life into things, I can tell you! It's as if you were sitting in front of a cinema screen and the film you were watching suddenly came to life. I got the idea one day when I was cleaning out my attic. I came across this old Jimi Hendrix album – it was pretty mouldy and half the sleeve was torn away but when I put it on the turntable it was amazing, the rhythm had more life to it than Mantis, my new album of the time (2001). It was amazing, that Hendrix record was thirty years old !
Why don't you just record everything directly onto analogue tape then ?
It's a question of money. Well, no that's not strictly true; it's not just that. It's also because our sound engineer Benoit Corboz – who's become a member of our team in his own right these days – doesn't have an analogue recorder in his studio.
Unlike your two previous albums, The Dawn and Bending New Corners, which revolved around a fairly light, airy acoustic sound, The Walk of the Giant Turtle is pretty electric… The thing is, I love rock music. Rock just gives me this huge high. I find it totally exhilarating. There are certain Rolling Stones tracks I love listening to in my car, for instance. I don't actually think Mick Jagger's a very good singer or that Keith Richards is a particularly good guitarist, but there's no denying that their sound really works... Listening to a song like Start me up makes me feel totally brilliant. All the members of the quartet come from a rock background and I have to say we've been moving in a pop direction for a while now really. The idea of playing a venue like the Olympia and packing it out with as many fans as a pop group, well, that's our dream really !
But you have to realise playing rock is demanding. It takes a lot more out of you in terms of energy. You have to give rock tracks your all, you know, you've really got to hammer them home. When you're developing a rock track in rehearsals and you've got to repeat the main themes over and over again, believe me, you feel absolutely knackered by the third go! I take my hat off to hard rock bands like AC-DC, they have my utmost respect... But I don't think we should go on too much about the rock tracks on the new album. After all, there are only three of them – which means the new album's only 30% rock !
With the exception of the track Seven Skies, you seem to have moved away from the 'success formula' you made your name with, i.e. mixing jazz with drum’n’bass ?
The Dawn, which I brought out in '95, was the result of a series of experiments I did with English sound systems. Back in those days I was heavily into drum’n’bass but then, you know… I guess at the end of the day it's a bit like flared trousers. Guys in Brooklyn used to go round wearing flares because they didn't have money to buy anything else, and then ten years later flares became cool and ended up being sold in all the chic boutiques. These days you hear drum’n’bass playing in any old English pub most night of the week and I think the sound's lost a lot of its original freshness. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are still some absolutely amazing guys playing on the underground, doing completely crazy things… But my own tastes have changed these days. Anyway, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Hendrix were my first big musical hits. They're what really blew me away at the age of 12 !
I've heard that your new album was originally going to be called Next Door. But you ended up naming it after the last track on the album. How did it end up as The Walk of the Giant Turtle ?
The sheer beauty of the title really. I feel this album's really the most accomplished thing we've composed to date – and Next Door made it sound very prosaic! The Walk of the Giant Turtle is a kind of tribute to slowness, really, because memory's linked to slowness. There's a real paradox between going fast… (Truffaz marks another dramatically long pause). You'll see, there's this whole theory behind it... I ended up asking myself a lot of questions about the title…
So what's the justification behind it ?Well, I've just finished reading Milan Kundera's new novel, La lenteur, and I think he more or less sums up what I'm trying to say… It's like, in the final analysis going quickly is a way of forgetting. If you're trying to remember something you have to slow down. It's difficult to get your memory functioning when you're in the middle of rushing around. The thing is, we're living in an age now where everyone's always running about all the time. But sometimes you have to stop and ask yourself, what the hell's this mad rush for ? I don't have any ready-made answer to that, in fact, only answers on an individual level.
There are a few spiteful critics in the jazz world who claim that when they listen to an Erik Truffaz record, they'd far rather hear the original, Miles Davis. The influence of Miles Davis is still very much in evidence on your new album. Do you feel comparisons with Davis are a bit of burden at times ?
Well, I can't say I give a damn really. It's not a problem for me. I don't have the genius of Miles Davis and let me be clear about this, I've never claimed to have it either. Comparing myself to Miles Davis would be greatly over-valuing my work and it could all too easily be turned against me… In fact, it has many times in the past! Apart from that, I love Miles Davis's work. I adore his style of playing and let's face it, I'd rather be compared to him than Jean-Claude Borelli.* Anyway, I'm really happy that a lot of people go from my music to Miles Davis and discover jazz that way. I think that's brilliant !
*a trumpet-player on the French 'variété' scene who has fallen out of fashion these days
Erik Truffaz The Walk of the Giant Turtle (Blue Note) 2003
Cyrille Peguy
Translation : Julie Street
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