Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Friday March 29, 2024: the harmonica player, Jean-Jacques Milteau. He returns with a new album “Key to the Highway” and will be on tour with an appearance on May 21 at New Morning in Paris.
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Jean-Jacques Milteau is a harmonica player, lover and passionate about melodies without a single false note. It was while listening to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones that he discovered this instrument that had become his own, an ideal traveling companion. A trip to the United States sealed this total fusion, first as an accompanying instrumentalist for the greatest like Yves Montand, Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, Maxime Le Forestier, Renaud and Charles Aznavour. Before embarking on a personal career, he notably became one of the Enfoirés within the Restos du coeur founded by Coluche to fight against hunger and precariousness.
Today, Jean-Jacques Milteau returns with a new album “Key to the Highway” and he will be on tour with a appearance on May 21 by New Morning in Paris.
franceinfo: Key to the Highway is first of all a declaration of love that you make to this instrument?
Jean-Jacques Milteau: I realized, over time, that everything that had happened to me in my life since I bought a harmonica was because of him!
It’s more thanks to him. You show through this album that ultimately, we must break down borders, but above all that they are necessary for crossbreeding.
Borders are necessary to find our way. They are a bit contested at the moment. But in music, this is not necessary. Ultimately, they are there to be crossed and Key to the Highwayit’s a bit like this idea of bringing together black music and white music from the South of the United States, which has always fascinated me, all styles of music and particularly blues and soul.
What does this instrument mean to you?
I can’t say it was a dream since that’s what happened to me. At the same time, it’s kind of special that tiny things like that transform a life. It leaves a lot of hope for the future.
“I never thought when I bought a harmonica for the equivalent of one euro, that it would decide my life.”
Jean-Jacques Milteauat franceinfo
When you look closely, the majority of boys mainly play guitar. It’s not that common to find harmonica players.
They play the guitar so they can smile at the girls. When you play the harmonica you can’t smile at the same time! Imagine if Elvis Presley had played the harmonica. It allows you to hide behind a bit and avoids talking nonsense too.
I was wondering at what age you realized that the harmonica and music were going to be a part of your life.
I still wonder! When I turned 35 and had a son, I said to myself: what can you do now? You look smart with your harmonica, you need to go a little further and I started thinking.
What does this album mean to you?
A great pleasure because the voices on it are voices that I have known for a number of years, with the possible exception of Mike Andersen who I met for the first time a few months ago. But these are people with whom I have filmed and with whom I have shared a lot of scenes. I’m very happy to have brought them together and at the same time, it creates a kind of continuity in the music while being different. In fact, when I listen to it, I don’t get bored.
Mike Anderson, Harrison Kennedy, Carlton Moody, Michael Robinson… There are only greats, great voices. Is it like a conversation between the instrument and the voices?
It’s exactly that.
“What I liked about the blues is that the harmonica was the singer’s interlocutor. It’s a kind of coach who returns the ball. You have to find your place.”
Jean-Jacques Milteauat franceinfo
In this album, there are lots of mixtures, country intonations, blues, jazz… It’s really a melting pot of all this history of music. How do you define yourself in this very eclectic landscape?
I would say that it is this music that touches me. It comes essentially from the South of the United States and it perhaps represents a form of the American dream as we were able to define it at one time, that is to say the fact of starting from a point to a point Y without using the usual vehicles.
When you’re a musician, when you don’t sing, when you’re not in the spotlight, do you protect yourself?
I agree with you, but at the same time, you perhaps have more of an overview, due to hindsight. In fact, a concert is a bit like a film, it’s a montage of pieces that follow one another and you have to maintain a rhythm. There are inevitably strong moments and less strong moments. It’s a kind of image, of staging.
On May 21, you will be in Paris, at the New Morning, in concert. What does it mean to go on stage with this harmonica and then with this music?
Above all, I hope for pleasure for my musicians and me. The New Morning is a legendary venue and I remember playing at the New Morning in Lausanne or Geneva before the one in Paris existed. At the time, there was Johnny Winter, quite a few people playing there that night and to find myself at the New Morning almost 40 years later, it’s nice.