Thirteen concerts for a birthday. The gypsy jazz group Samarabalouf is on tour in Toulouse and its surroundings until April 1st. To celebrate its 25-year career, the trio invited a different artist each evening.
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The tour started at Le Bijou, a small independent concert hall located behind the shop of a neighborhood bistro in Toulouse. It is in this place emblematic of the city of Toulouse that many today recognized artists have started their careers. The three musicians of Samarabalouf invited the young Toulouse rapper YHL that evening
When rap meets gypsy jazz, it takes a few adjustments, but these artists are virtuosos. Music specially composed for the occasion or rearrangements, Samarabalouf revisits three works from the YHL repertoire “What they are doing is amazing, enthuses the latter. The piece I just did is really hyper electronic and I said to myself: but how are they going to get out of it?
I have my reflex pieces on stage and I know my instruments by heart. There are the same benchmarks but not the same instruments, you have to be a little more attentive than usual. But at the same time, it’s another emotion.
“It’s a kif”
By dint of listening and openness, the two worlds end up agreeing. Between improbable mixtures and risk-taking, the musician François Petit is also satisfied. The musician, who founded Samarabalouf 25 years ago in Amiens before settling ten years later in the pink city, does not hide his pleasure. “The fact of having tried to transcribe the electronic versions as well as possible to put them on our wooden guitars,is a kif as they say”, he confides. “It pleases me”, the rapper immediately replies, impatient to go on stage.
For three weeks, the Samarabalouf group will crisscross the city and perform in twelve different places, crowded bars or performance halls, everyone can choose their atmosphere. There Tournée des Grands-Ducs will end on April 1st at Breughel l’Ancien with a participatory concert. Violinist, trumpet player, jew’s harp player or singing lover, the public is invited that evening to go on stage to perform one of Samarabalouf’s cult songs: That’s life. If your heart tells you, you can get ready now, the score can be found here.
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