Musica Callada - François Couturier / François (...)

Jazz François Couturier, piano François Laizeau batterie, François Méchali contrebasse Musica Callada - Musique du silence

Where Mompou’s poetry and freedom meet the imaginary of three jazzmen

The composer Federico Mompou (1893 - 1987), a Catalan like Miró, friend of Prokofiev, de Falla, Villa-Lobos, Milhaud, Poulenc and Arthur Rubinstein. He also frequented Paul Valéry and kept up a lengthy correspondence with Vladimir Jankélevitch,... his works extends over seven decades. But who still listens to Federico Mompou?

Carlos Saura uses his music in Cria Cuervos (Canço i Dansa VI ), the american avant garde showed interest : Tony Malaby quartet / Paloma Recio (Musica callada)), Beirach/Mraz/Huebner Around Federico Mompou...

In Europe, nothing or so little... Its reinvention by the three françois is miraculous...

Constantly on the look-out for Mompou’s fundamental idea - that ‘search for sonorous solitude’ mentioned by Jankélevitch, when ‘music has become the very voice of silence, when silence itself is made music’ - they explore, in this œuvre often said to be reduced to its essence, the phenomena of resonance; going beyond minimalism and purely aesthetic effects, they interrogate this form of allusive, playful musical innocence, cultivating the sidestep. In a subtle interplay of elegant concentration, sometimes deceptively lightweight, the three improvisers distil radiant gems in sound, the result of their preferences (and, above all, not of their premises), which in their restrained emotion defined by avoidances, foreshortenings, ellipses, match the intimate inner monologue of the Catalan composer, that aesthetic of the ineffable with which they have very serious fun. Bernard Aimé

Concert at NEW MORNING - 27 SEPTEMBRE 2010

LES 3 F SE JOUENT DE FEDERICO MOMPOU - Musica Callada - Musique silencieuse François Couturier has played with John Mc Laughlin, Jean-Paul Celea, François Jeanneau, Eddy Louiss, Didier Levallet, Larry Schneider, Dominique Pifarély, Michel Godard, Louis Sclavis, François Corneloup, Anouar Brahem and recorded with ECM; François Mechali with Anthony Braxton, Kenny Wheeler, Joachim Kuhn, Shahib Shihab, Buddy Collette, Charlie Mariano, Stu Martin, Enrico Rava, Daniel Humair, Ceccarelli, Michel Portal, Martial Solal, Didier Lockwood, Tony Coe, Fredy Studer... François Laizeau with Dante Agostini, Joschk’o Seffer, Magma for 6 years, Tania Maria, Alan Stivell for 3 years, Celea-Couturier-Pifarely-Laizeau, François Jeanneau, Antoine Hervé, Martial Solal, Andy Emler, Michel Legrand for 7 years...Eddy Louiss for 8 years, Louis Sclavis, Larry Schneider, Michel Portal, Jef Sicard, Thierry Robin, Fred Monino...