Twenty years after his discographic debut, Pierrick Pédron, alto saxophonist and eclectic and adventurous composer will have experienced a year 2021 strewn with sparks. In March, the native of Saint-Brieuc launched the album Fifty-Fifty (Gazebo label), brilliant first part of a diptych recorded between New York and Paris. For the American sessions, supported by musician-producer Daniel Yvinec and pianist Laurent Courthaliac on the writing work, the Breton artist has surrounded himself with a dream cast: pianist Sullivan Fortner (known in France for his duet with Cécile McLorin Salvant), double bassist Larry Grenadier (accomplice of Brad Mehldau) and drummer Marcus Gilmore (worthy grandson of the illustrious Roy Haynes). If this first volume is acoustic, the second, recorded with young French jazzmen, will be electric.
In October, Pédron was crowned instrumental artist of the year at the Victoires du jazz (which earned him the honor of a beautiful documentary). In December, he was elected French Artist of the Year in the 2021 joint monthly list Jazz Magazine and Jazz News, while Fifty-Fifty is among the 2021 albums of the American magazine DownBeat. What soften his first steps in his fifties (he is now 52 years old, since April 23).
To celebrate this record and some older ones, Pierrick Pédron will perform Thursday, December 9 at New Morning, in Paris, with the group of French sessions of Fifty-Fifty (but volume 2 of the diptych will not be released immediately): pianist Carl-Henri Morisset, bassist Florent Nisse and drummer Élie Martin-Charrière. This is the training that officiates on the film of the Victoires du Jazz 2021.
Franceinfo Culture: How do you feel after a memorable year for your last album and your career?
Pierrick Pédron : I do not necessarily do things to receive so much gratitude and decorations … And this record, I did not realize it alone. But it is really done with the heart. It’s a complete reflection of my personality, I went there without a net! I did it in a very honest way, without superficiality, with total sincerity and it worked. Maybe people recognized a trait of my personality, of my music, and it touched the world of jazz. There were indeed plenty of great returns. I am almost a little embarrassed by these awards because I have so much respect, admiration, for all my colleagues. But I am very happy and I take it with happiness. Despite the events and the drama that lurks around us, due to the Covid, it has been a wonderful year for this record.
The “Fifty-Fifty” project celebrates your 50th anniversary. Did you conceive it, prepare it, in a particular spirit in relation to this anniversary?
Not at all, I’m too oblivious for that. The title of the album came later. By making these recordings which we found quite nice and honest, we realized that we had to think about something special. It was Daniel Yvinec, my artistic director, who had the idea to mention my 50 years since that is the period around which we did these sessions. I found the idea appealing.
How are you living in your early fifties, this moment in your life, in your career?
If it weren’t for the Covid, that would be fantastic, I would experience a certain fullness. But we have to think about the future, we wonder if we will be able to do concerts … I’m not pessimistic but I think about it sometimes and it makes me a little sad … Personally, I feel rather well, serene, in communication with my entourage. In terms of music too. From time to time, bad things can have some virtue. The Covid and the confinements have brought me one positive thing: the work on the saxophone. I worked a lot ! There are times when all the stars are aligned. It’s a period of my life that I like.
Did this period lead you to take stock of your career?
Oh no, I hate it. I am quite instinctive when it comes to music. I like to say that there is an element of recklessness … What interests me in this job is risk taking and nothing else. And the moment you take risks, you can’t plan your career. If you had to plan your career, know what you were going to do, that would mean that you wouldn’t have the time, the opportunity to take risks, you would have to build things in relation to a certain process of success. Me, I just ask to make records and concerts. My life is very good like that. I live day by day.
By the way, do you have a particular fondness for some of your albums?
I have a tenderness for all, because they are part of a moment in my life, and each moment is unique. But I like the break brought by the album Omry [ndlr, un virage dévoilant ses influences rock, intégrant un hommage à Oum Kalthoum, en 2009]. If this allowed a lot of people to get to know me better through my music, it also marked the beginning of a certain destabilization. I didn’t want to keep the title of the bopper [ndlr : musicien jouant du bebop] Even though I love this music, I come, I worked on it and I played it until Deep in a Dream [2007]. But I have destabilized a lot of people. Some have seen a change in personality, I have been criticized for going from rooster to donkey and making records that were unrelated to each other, but so much the better! This is exactly what I am looking for! If I made the same records all the time, it wouldn’t be very rich, it would mean that I wouldn’t take any risks.
We can say that it is your driving force in music.
I consider that risk taking is an essential vector in creation, composition, creativity and improvisation. Improvisation is risk taking, that must be it! Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense, it’s plagiarism and it doesn’t really reflect our personality.
Sakura (Pierrick Pédron / Laurent Courthaliac)
After the turn of “Omry”, has your way of composing evolved over time?
It’s always about research, with great respect. I love working on harmony, melody … I like a little more sophisticated melodies, things that come from free, from the spirit of the jazzmen of the 60s, 70s who made this music evolve into offering something else. I composed my last record in a completely new way for me because usually I like to compose with the piano, singing the melodies to myself. This time, I went from time to time in a studio, I improvised with the saxophone and I recorded myself, all alone, without giving myself the slightest harmonic, melodic, structural constraint. I allowed myself everything that could be possible, successions of notes that had little to do with each other. Then, listening to myself again, I decided to reorient all that on something more common …
In improvisation, what I love about jazz musicians is being surprised, especially in this story between tension and relaxation. [ndlr : la tension surgit quand le jeu du soliste crée une sensation d’instabilité par rapport à l’harmonie du morceau, jusqu’à sa résolution]. When it gets very tense, I like when a musical phrase pops up and makes me say: ah, how beautiful! I wanted to do the same on the composition. Once I had structured some of the notes I had recorded, I called on the pianist Laurent Courthaliac. He has an extremely bebop side, rigorous in this period of jazz, he knows the music of Monk and Charlie Parker very well. He’s a chord scientist.
How did you collaborate?
The challenge that I proposed to him was to organize his science of a mastered music on the melodies that I had made in a random way. I asked him to “relax” and enrich my notes with harmonies. It gives something quite original, with melodies that became quite easy to listen to, through the chords he had placed on them. What is deeper than this kind of exercise? Initially, it’s something that comes from you. It’s like going to the shrink who asks you to be connected with yourself, and to bring out things that come from deep within you … I made my self-psychoanalysis. And this, always with a musical ear that allows me to filter all this and to ask myself if I like it or not.
“Fifty-Fifty” is a diptych. When will the second part be released?
We do not know yet. There is no date scheduled at the moment. For now, I just want to bring the first volume to life. I don’t want to put pressure on volume 2.
Will the concert at New Morning give the opportunity to celebrate this album and your beautiful year 2021?
Fifty-Fifty will of course be on the program, but it will also be a celebration of other records. As there will be two long sets, I’m going to cover songs that I haven’t played for a long time, taken from albums like Omry (2009), Classical Faces (2004), Deep in a Dream (2007) … It will bring back memories to people who have followed me for a long time. And that will make me very happy.
Pierrick Pédron in concert in Paris
Thursday December 9, 2021 at New Morning, 9 p.m.
Pierrick Pedron: alto saxophone, compositions
Carl-Henri Morisset: piano, co-composer of certain titles
Florent Nisse: double bass
Élie Martin-Charrière: drums