Harmonium | More than just musicians among many others

To mark the farewell show of keyboardist Serge Locat, his former Harmonium comrades Monique Fauteux, Libert Subirana and Louis Valois will join him this Friday at L’Assomption, to perform a portion dear to their hearts from The Heptad. Meeting with the musicians of a group that we brought into the world and that we should perhaps celebrate more.

When was the last time so many members of Harmonium were on the same stage? The main players don’t remember exactly. “It might have been in 1987, in Joliette,” whispers saxophonist, flautist and multi-instrumentalist Libert Subirana, an invaluable supporting actor on countless great albums, including some by Diane Dufresne, Paul Piché, Yvon Deschamps and Richard Séguin.

For nearly a decade, Subirana has been playing with pianist Serge Locat in Kébek Muse, a 12-member group that breathes new life into classic Quebec songs, including several from their former group, Harmonium. And this Friday, at the Théâtre Hector-Charland, Locat, 73, will take the stage for the last time, before returning to his quarters for good and finally resting.

When they heard the news a few months ago, singer and keyboardist Monique Fauteux, a voice like the clearest spring water, and bassist Louis Valois, the only member besides Serge Fiori to have been in Harmonium from start to finish, couldn’t resist the urge to invite themselves. They will join Subirana and Locat for the time it takes to make the Lights of lifethis piece in five movements (taken from the version live of The Heptad) which the almost retired man partly composed, a bravura piece combining piano, organ and mellotron which rises quietly into the clouds.

While Harmonium’s music has had no shortage of opportunities to be celebrated in recent years thanks to symphonic concerts and the show presented by Cirque Éloize in 2019, it is each time its leader, Serge Fiori, who has been its standard-bearer.

“But I consider that I contributed a lot to Harmonium, even if Serge was the main melodist and songwriter,” argues Serge Locat, whose only solo album, Transfer (1978), is a little-known gem of instrumental music, a glorious orgy of synths.

Louis Valois takes great care in choosing his words. “This notion that Harmonium was a singer accompanied by musicians, it bothers me,” he admits. After having worked together between 2016 and 2019 on the reissues of The Heptad (1976) and the eponymous 1974 album, he and Fiori “digressed,” he sums up cautiously, careful not to hurt anyone.

“Recognition of what others have done, Serge tends to be a little secretive about that, but I remember very well – this is an example – Serge Locat and [du défunt batteur Denis] Farmer in Saint-Césaire, and what was happening while the track was being cut First Heavenis that it became something other than the song composed by Serge Fiori. It became the sound of the group Harmonium. And that, we sometimes seem to forget.”

On the threshold of consecration

In Quebec, Harmonium has long been canonized, but perhaps too little is said, more than 45 years after the group’s dissolution, to what extent it was on the threshold of international recognition. The eyes of Serge Locat, Monique Fauteux, Libert Subirana and Louis Valois light up when talking about their European tour in September and October 1977, opening for Supertramp.

“It wasn’t an opening act, but a double bill,” Louis Valois corrects, laughing, still incredulous. “Unlike some bands, who limit the opening act to certain microphones, we had all the space we wanted.” Serge Locat adds: “The guys from Supertramp were on the edge of the stage and they listened to us, every night. They were having a blast.”

Unlike Beau Dommage or Octobre, who allowed their fans born after the poncho went out of fashion to see them in the flesh, Harmonium is one of the very rare bands to have resisted the call of the comeback tour or album.

“It’s certain that if everyone had wanted to do it, it would have been fun,” thinks Monique Fauteux, who is working with Louis Valois (her boyfriend for a long time) and their daughter Julie on a series of four albums, the first of which should be released soon. “The adventure I would have liked us to explore is to do new things, all together.”

Respecting the past

At the time of the reissue of The Heptadin 2016, Serge Fiori “was open to the idea of ​​a comeback,” confides Louis Valois. “And I don’t think we would have needed to advertise too much. But ultimately, the pressure was too great. The expectation would have been enormous. That Serge had managed to launch his solo album [en 2014]this is already a great achievement, which deserves admiration.”

But, as historic as this resurrection would have been, there is a nobility in respecting the past and leaving intact those moments of grace whose landscape we are forced, like wise men, to simply imagine.

“In a way, yes, it’s maybe right that it stays like that,” Louis Valois agrees. “It’s maybe more beautiful like that.”

“But I won’t lie to you: I find it very exciting, what we’re going to do together on Friday,” he adds before asking his friend Locat a question. “Tell me, Serge, is this your last show for real?”

Serge Locat and Kébek Muse, this Friday at 8 p.m. at the Théâtre Hector-Charland, in l’Assomption

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