Pianist, composer, orchestrator, Leïla Olivesi, winner of the prestigious Django Reinhardt prize, defends on stage her excellent album “Astral” recorded with a brilliant group of seven musicians and two guests. She answers questions from Franceinfo Culture on the eve of a concert in Paris, Thursday evening at New Morning.
She took her first steps in jazz as a teenager. Then, almost twenty years ago, she released her first album as a leader, Frida (2004). In 2023, Leïla Olivesi savors the fruits of her passion for jazz and a long-term journey which has led her to shine and flourish at the head of a structure bringing together seven musicians, or even nine if you count the artists. guests on his albums. This is how she recorded Andaman Suite (2019), designated Coup de Cœur of the Académie Charles-Cros, then Astralreleased in November 2022 (by Attention Fragile/L’Autre Distribution), which earned him the highly prized Django Reinhardt Prize from the Jazz Academy, for the year 2022. Astral was also praised by the monthly Jazz Magazine And Jazz News. But the forty-year-old pianist was already used to distinctions.
Born on October 30, 1977 at Moulin d’Andé (Eure), in Normandy, to a Mauritanian father and a Corsican mother, Leïla Olivesi grew up in Paris while maintaining strong links with her native region. She was 13 when she joined the juvenile troupe P’tits Loups du jazz directed by Olivier Caillard. Graduated in philosophy, musicology, jazz piano, musical training, writing and orchestration, she obtained her first artist distinctions in the early 2000s. She has released six albums and composed film scores. She became a teacher, but also a speaker, in partnership with the late Claude Carrière (to whom she pays homage in the piece Missing CC), to celebrate Duke Ellington.
At the head of a formidable group
With Astral, Leïla Olivesi shows the full range of her talents in writing for orchestra, lyrical and contrasting, while creating spaces for improvisation. It must be said that she surrounded herself well for the last two albums: Quentin Ghomari (trumpet), Baptiste Herbin (saxophone, flute), Adrien Sanchez and Jean-Charles Richard (saxophones), Manu Codjia (guitar), Yoni Zelnik (double bass), Donald Kontomanou (drums), as well as two guests, Chloé Cailleton (vocals) and Géraldine Laurent (saxophone), make up the disc’s lineup. The pianist and the seven jazzmen perform Thursday September 21 in Paris, at the New Morning.
Franceinfo Culture: Where does your taste for big groups come from? Does it come from your experience with the P’tits Loups du jazz when you were a teenager?
Leila Olivesi : It’s possible. I never asked myself this question. When I was little, I quickly wanted to play jazz. And jazz, already, was ensemble music for me. That’s what spoke to me. Les P’tits loups du jazz came a little later, when I was already into this music. I was 13 when we made our first record with the P’tits Loups, and it’s true that each time, there were a lot of us, it was festive. So I perhaps find this sharing aspect in large groups. But I also think that I was marked by the music that I listened to, music that spoke to me when it was orchestral. At home, we listened to Astor Piazzolla who played with great groups, as well as Miles Davis and Gil Evans who were in a superb search for sound. There was also music from New Orleans: it’s a bit of a half-improvisational festival, with lots of instrument tones. So I grew up with this taste without ever really telling myself.
So you wanted to play jazz from your childhood?
First there was the environment at home. I was immersed in jazz from birth, my mother was crazy about it. She worked in the cinema but she was also an artist, she wrote poems. She was friends with Nina Simone who came to the house, like a lot of musicians. I started learning music with the Caillard family [ndlr : une famille de musiciens pédagogues]. Jacqueline Caillard was first my recorder teacher, then we played piano together. Quickly, around the age of 9, I started doing summer internships. For a week, we followed individual lessons, but we also did group activities. And there, while I was going to take my flute lessons, I heard, nearby, teenagers playing jazz. I said to myself : “That’s what I want to do!” The saxophonist Rémi Sciuto, who was a little older than me, also did these courses, I heard him play. He was one of my models.
You cultivated this taste for the collective during your musical studies…
When I studied writing and orchestration, it’s true that I looked more closely at symphony orchestras. I also studied, a little, writing for big band. But I’m more or less self-taught in this field, I took arranging lessons but I never really learned any recipes. I like to let what I hear in my head speak rather than applying precise recipes like: “When writing for four voices, one instrument must be above another…” I prefer to do things more spontaneously. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t take time, but in any case there is this search for what speaks to me.
When it comes to large ensembles, do you have any references or artists who have inspired you?
Duke Ellington, of course. I like large ensembles, but I also like medium ensembles, when there are quite a few different instruments, but things are quite rich, combined in different ways. I think of the music of Danilo Pérez, as well as of SF Jazz Collective which I find brilliant, with Miguel Zenón, or of Wayne Shorter’s collaboration with the group Imani Winds in the album Without a Net where there is writing for woodwinds. I don’t like when music sounds systematic, generic, I prefer very personalized things.
This is what you wanted to do in your latest musical projects…
This is exactly what I try to implement, by choosing the soloists for whom I write. I want them to be both ensemble musicians and soloists. I like this balance: on the one hand, being at the service of the music and making sure the whole thing sounds, and at the same time, having the freedom to express oneself, improvise, invent music live. For me, this is the richness of jazz. When I put together the nonet for Andaman Suite, I had an idea of the music I was going to play. It’s a back and forth between the project and the musicians. I formed the group based on what I wanted to express in general with my music, for example in terms of timbres. I chose people I had played with before in smaller formations. When I wrote the scores, I knew who was going to play, but also how it was going to sound. Afterwards, sometimes we have surprises. At the start, we plan, we imagine what it will be like… Then, once we are all playing together, there may be small adjustments to make. In general, things are going in the right direction, and with the exchanges within the group, the music becomes richer.
This recent orientation has been very successful for you. On March 12, you received the Django Reinhardt Prize, the most important distinction from the Jazz Academy. What does this mean to you?
I was extremely touched. When I found out I had this award, I looked at the list of all the past winners. There, I felt dizzy as I said to myself: “Wow! Okay!” It’s a truly prestigious family… It’s not a prize like any other. It’s something that seems important to me, especially since you can only have it once in your career. The Jazz Academy is a truly valuable association in my eyes, it’s not an industry thing, there is an “art for art’s sake” side that I appreciate. It must also be said thatAstral is the revelation of a long journey. I really have the feeling of having found the right training, the music that I want to make. It’s like the stars are aligned, everything works well, it’s very nice.
Has being a female musician made your path in jazz more complicated, especially at the head of a big band?
Not especially. In my career, until recently – since people keep asking me the question -, before this debate arrived on the scene, I had never really asked myself the question of these difficulties. In fact, I didn’t consider myself a female musician, but rather a musician in a generic way, like “a musician”, you know. With the people I work with, I have not encountered any difficulties due to being a woman. I have always surrounded myself with gentlemen! [elle rit] Maybe if I had been a man it would have been easier to distribute from the start. Maybe it takes a little longer for people to take us seriously when we’re a woman… I really say that with a grain of salt. Obviously, there were sometimes things that were a little inappropriate in my career, but it was more with sound engineers than with musicians.
After the Andaman Suite And Astraldo you plan to make the next album with the same lineup?
I would love to do a trilogy. I would like to continue exploring with this set, because we haven’t covered it at all! I’m trying to start preparing the third album. Since it’s going perfectly, I think everyone is up for the adventure.
Leïla Olivesi “Astral” in concert in Paris
Thursday September 21, 2023, New Morning, 8:30 p.m.
His concert schedule, on his official website