As one of the pillars of Jazz at La Villette, American musicians had almost disappeared from the famous festival in northeastern Paris due to Covid-19. In this return to school 2022, they are making a strong comeback in the event which begins on Wednesday August 31. “The Americans couldn’t come at all, there suddenly something is circulating more. We found a pre-Covid configuration”, rejoices with AFP Frank Piquard, programmer of the festival which will take place until September 11.
The American artists of the 2022 edition come from New Orleans, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, bastion cities of jazz in the country where this music was born a little more than a century ago. They embody the new currents of a scene in full swing across the Atlantic, with young talents who will draw their inspiration from funk, hip-hop or electronic music and shake up the codes of jazz. “We said to ourselves that it was perhaps the time to focus on young people, there were a lot of proposals for new projects”, details Frank Piquard.
Among these proposals that have had time to flourish during this confined period, figure DOMi & JD Beck, a duo of very young musicians perform a jazz groove (September 10, Grande Halle). Another duo, between electro-pop and funk: Knower, uniting drummer Louis Cole and singer Geneviève Artadi (September 4, Grande Halle). These duos are from Los Angeles.
New Orleans has delegated Tank and the Bangas, a “combo” which humorously interprets refreshing music where funk, hip hop, soul and jazz collide (September 1, Grande Halle).
Clarinetist and multi-instrumentalist Angel Bat Dawid will represent the Chicago school with a mystical and incantatory free jazz in the tradition of her elders who initiated the concept of “Great Black Music” in the 1960s (September 7, Cité de la Musique ).
These young musicians often receive support from their elders. The Jazz à La Villette festival wanted to bear witness to these links forged between generations. Cimafunk, a young Cuban funk-rap group, will dialogue with trombonist Fred Wesley, 79, former member of the JB Horns, James Brown’s legendary brass section in the last century (September 1, Grande Halle).
Another example of cross-generational training: Scary Goldings, a vintage funky-jazzy-soul group born on the web where guitarist John Scofield, 70, cohabits and who worked in particular with Miles Davis, the “quinqua” Larry Goldings on the organ and the thirties MonoNeon on bass or Louis Cole on drums (September 4, Grande Halle). Without forgetting that DOMi & JD Beck were dubbed by the giant Herbie Hancock who plays on their first record released recently.
Among all these discoveries, some jazz legends manage to make their way: Abdullah Ibrahim (September 6, Cité de la Musique), Kenny Baron and Dave Holland (September 2, Philharmonie), or Ravi Coltrane (September 11, Philharmonie).
Pianist Abdullah Ibrahim is one of the last survivors of the South African jazz adventure born in the townships in the early 1960s, during the apartheid era. Alone at the piano, he will transport his audience for one of those journeys of which he has the secret.
Jazz à La Villette likes to refer to the history of soul music and funk, through tributes to its heroes. After the beautiful tributes paid to Bill Withers by José James and to Prince by Jeanne Added in 2021, it is Marvin Gaye’s turn to be honored.
In 1971, Marvin Gaye released a revolutionary album: What’s going on. Drugs, civil rights, poverty, the Vietnam War, ecology… so many themes he tackles there, shattering his image as an interpreter of romances. The songs from this mythical album will come to life again thanks to the Nu Civilization Orchestra, an offshoot of Tomorrow’s Warriors, a kind of very open jazz school with a great social mix based in London. “A project that has as much a political and social dimension as a purely artistic one”, emphasizes Frank Piquard (September 11, Grande Halle).
Other music legends must be honored at Jazz à la Villette. Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane will explore the music of his parents John and Alice (September 11). Guitarist Matthis Pascaud and singer Hugh Coltman have teamed up for a musical project around Dr John, legend of New Orleans, a city that Coltman already celebrated in 2017 in his disc Who’s Happy? (September 8, Grande Halle).
Finally, Asynchrone, hosted by cellist Clément Petit and sound engineer Frédéric Soulard, will visit the work of Japanese composer Ryūichi Sakamoto in a premiere (September 4, Cité de la Musique).
To continue on the French and European participants, it is necessary to underline the presence of the British of Kokoroko, a group mixed with Afrobeat in full rise on the European jazz scene, at the opening night of the festival (August 31, Grande Halle).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brPXQdEA2ps
Also to discover, the trombonist Robinson Khoury who will present his second album Broken Lines (September 2, Studio de l’Ermitage), Italian drummer Simone Prattico and his distinguished guests (September 1, Studio de l’Ermitage), the creation Dress code flautist Jocelyn Mienniel and pianist Chassol (September 4, Cité de la Musique), saxophonist Émile Parisien and his fine disc Louisa (September 11, Philharmonie), Swiss keyboardist Gauthier Toux (Studio de l’Ermitage, September 8), pianist Cheick Tidiane Seck in solo (September 7, Cité de la musique), violinist Clément Janinet’s OURS project (September 8 , Atelier du Plateau), without forgetting a whole program for young people…
Finally, note the presence at the festival of the wonderful Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen who will come to present his latest album, Naked Truth (September 9, Cité de la Musique), and Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, a regular at Jazz à la Villette (September 3, Grande Halle).
Jazz at La Villette, from August 31 to September 11, 2022 in Paris
> Programming by theme