Serge Truffaut is remembered as an economics journalist, columnist casting his informed eye on American politics and columnist who promoted and defended, with passion and erudition, jazz music in the pages of the Duty for more than three decades. Published these days by Éditions Somme tout / Le Devoir Jazz memoirsa collection of nearly 80 chronicles, which is not a history of jazz, underlines the journalist and writer, but which “gives an idea of jazz, at certain times of the last thirty years”.
The book groups its chronicles by theme. A long chapter on the great builders of jazz, another bringing together his tributes to deceased musicians, a section of moments savored at the Festival international de jazz de Montréal, another on the artisans of the local jazz scene, a cross-section and relevant on jazz and politics, the author retracing, with examples from yesterday and today, how jazzmen have composed the soundtrack of the struggle for civil rights.
This ability to make connections, between history and music, and between the musicians themselves, is the great strength of Jazz memoirs. Truffaut, purist of the blue note, does pedagogy, never boring, revealing in passing his preferences for certain currents and actors of this musical scene.
For example, the importance of the work of composer and pianist Randy Weston, often presented as the unofficial ambassador of African music in jazz, is repeatedly praised in the book. Valuable, too, is the reframing of the legacy of Montreal-born composer and pianist Paul Bley, who was the first to reach out to future giants Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and Don Cherry, to name but a few.
With happiness we will reread this vibrant text written in memory of Oscar Peterson, and we would not change a comma. Truffaut talks passionately about Duke Ellington, Zoot Sims, Sun Ra, Art Pepper. “I think of him because a lot has been written about Chet Baker, with good reason, but I’ve always found that when you have eight or nine Baker albums, you have everything you need. It becomes repetitive, which is less the case with Art Pepper, that’s why I insisted on his work. »
Throughout his chronicles, by revealing these links that his encyclopaedic knowledge allows him to trace, Truffaut directs the reader to new musical avenues to explore, recordings to discover. “One thing for me was really sacred, emphasizes Serge Truffaut: I have always felt that I was at the service of the reader, the one who buys – I insist on the literally economic verb – records and show tickets. »
The idea of publishing an anthology of his best texts comes from his publisher, explains the journalist. “At the beginning, I was not very keen on the idea: I find that the articles, once we have written them, two days later, we have already forgotten them… But I am happy with the result. What I found interesting was writing the preface, since it allowed me to update certain facts, not only musical, but economic, and related to music. »
Controversial remarks
Let’s talk about his preface. Truffaut begins by reminding us of the etymology of the word “jazz”, in order to better distinguish its essence and oppose it to its substitutes, then denounces the industrialization of the jazz scene, the stranglehold on it by the conglomerates which possess the most major labels and, consequently, force “a displacement of decision-making power” on what will or will not be presented to the public. Serge Truffaut regrets that the erosion of the media space given to jazz is done “for the benefit of whom, for what? So-called current music, world music and even progressive rock musicians, ”he writes.
Then, on page 15, 2e paragraph, this: “The most terrible thing about this aspect of things is to note that here and there in the media, we have made the bed of canned humbug. How ? That the same person writes one day on jazz, the next day on world music, the day after on hip-hop… In short, we made the bed, the “king size”, intellectual dishonesty. »
Could you clarify your thoughts, Mr. Truffaut? “I’m going to give you an example that still bothers me, that of jazzmagazine, who had made his front page with David Bowie. And with Frank Zappa, the previous year, whereas, for important jazz musicians who have also disappeared, sometimes they ignore it. I have been very annoyed for years, as an old reader of the JazzMag, of this turn taken with a financial background, since these magazines are no longer independent, but from now on the subsidiaries of these conglomerates “which also own the record companies.
Having called the entire profession of journalists and critics intellectually dishonest because its members write about different musical styles, the explanation seems a bit short. We urge him to develop: “I speak from my own experience, he says. I am a jazz columnist. The times when I was asked to talk about another musical genre, it basically meant that I amputating the media space granted to jazz. […] But I may have, probably, expressed myself badly: rather than speaking [des journalistes], I should have written about magazines. »
Where are the women?
In Jazz memoirs, we recognize the chronicler’s desire to broaden the reader’s field of hearing by taking it outside the catalog of classic labels, exposing these treasures that grow on the fringes of Verve, Blue Note and Impulse! Except for this striking detail: of the approximately 80 texts selected, none of them focuses on the work of one of the many women who have contributed to the development and influence of jazz. Not a text on Nina Simone, let’s say, or Maria Schneider, or Billie Holiday, Alice Coltrane, Meredith Monk…
“It has nothing to do with me and what I am, but everything to do with mathematics: jazz artists are overwhelmingly men,” responds simply Serge Truffaut who, in almost each of his columns, had the great idea to recommend an album to the reader. Our Turn: Composer and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington presented last fall New Standards, Vol. 1 (on the Candid label), one of the best jazz albums of 2022, exclusively made up of interpretations of works composed by women (the young Brandee Younger, the legends Carla Bley and Abbey Lincoln, among others) with the aim of finally registering in the memories of jazz the names of these immense musicians.