Elected “Revelation!” award.

Review by Franck Bergerot

I wrote a review of “Alba Lux”, this quartet’s first album, in December 2008 in which I had expressed the joy I experienced in rediscovering the same feelings I had had 25 years earlier when first listening to Marc Ducret, Malo Vallois and Serge Lazarevitch. Three years on, I find this music has matured, ripened and taken distance from its influences, and has become solidly founded on  writing of a poetic sense, incontestably unique.

Across the long opening suite, based around a text of the guitarist which particularly inspires David Linx its interpreter, unfolds an authentic development from a simple guitar ostinato which gradually twists and contorts in a perpetual motion as David Prez’ saxophone billows out its plumes. That is, until the rupture of this tight weave wherein a fat sounding guitar is revealed, nourished on progressive rock, making Bruno Schorp’s double bass and Karl Jannuska’s drums dance feverishly.

The other pieces demonstrate the same sense of construction, of tension and release, with the continual feeling that we are being drawn towards a sort of poetic imperative which notably infuses the two movements of I Got an Idea, and on a wider scale the different facets of this album right to its epilogue in which Linx rejoins us.

The lyric and dramatic motor of this music does not go without reminding us of a certain Gabor Gado, though less sorrowful and at times more playful. That is, more  Alice in Wonderland than  The Brothers Karamazov.

Buy reduced price tickets for our “Motion Unfolding” CD release concert at Sunset Jazz Club!

Just click below to book tickets at 15€ instead of 20€

N E W 4TET A L B U M “Motion Unfolding” to be released in October on the German Label – Double Moon Records.

CD release concert at Sunset Jazz Club, Paris on the 28th October!
Buy reduced price tickets to this concert HERE

After two more years of regular concerts, and working together since the last CD, the quartet has dug deep, honed and innovated the group sound and now opens the door to a special guest: singer DAVID LINX featured on two tracks of the album. This album promises the same richness and rhythmic depth which characterises the group, but with an effulgent energy and melodic pace which drives open this contemporary music to all ears.

CD of the Month

Review by Jérôme Gransac

A Frenchman by adoption since five years ago, Tam-Lynn de Villiers, of British origin learnt music from a young age with Tommy Smith in Scotland and then in Leeds, in the north of England. In 2003, he moved to France, and continued his studies at the Conservatoire de Montreuil and played with Marc Ducret (who is full of praise for his former student), Fabrizio Cassol and Stéphane Payen. Next he formed his quartet with David Prez, the excellent drummer Karl Jannuska and the double-bassist Bruno Schorp, who attracted some attention with his “Colors Sextet” last year (Prizewinner at the La Defense 2008 Jazz Competition and the “Trophées du Sunside” 2008 competition).

Unexpected, Tam de Villiers radiates a stimulating groove – not just with any old catchy riff, or clever rhythmic variation, but with the kind that carries the unique mark of its author, and that’s rare. With de Villiers it is solemnly retained throughout. It reflects the excellence of composition; hardly perceptible in the beginning, it gives you the shivers after a few seconds, a little adventurous but well brought in, like a little poem. Here, the guitar speaks about itself! And it speaks well, the guitar of Tam de Villiers!

In the jazz world, the guitarists who really stick out from the crowd can be counted on the fingers of Django’s left hand. Like saxophonists you might say… Not completely, because the instrument was reinvented in all musical styles. And Tam de Villiers has developed a style and a sound that is immediately recognizable. With a subtle dosage of effects, he has found a little light that stays shining all throughout the album. Influenced by the guitarists who are in the contemporary limelight (Ducret, Kurt Rosenwinkel and especially Ben Monder), he could neither completely renounce the aura of our McLaughlin’s and Hendrix’s. But this almost-thirty year old reminds us also of Clapton of Cream (as he solos easily in the low registers, like him). With such a heritage, he explodes onto this first album with balanced and solid playing, an open phrasing, without un-necessary embellishment, without overdone emotion, and brings a rock element to his jazz compositions.

For David Prez, a regular client amongst guitarists – he accompanies Sandro Zerafa with Olivier Zanot and is co-leader with Romain Pilon – his challenge is to come out with new ideas. Indeed, we discover him here on a different day. Incisive, melodic, inevitably groovier, he has totally got the idea. With three guitaristic collaborations and by adding his participation in the Talkin’ About Trio of Matthieu Marthouret, Prez reveals himself to be a creative accompanist who know how to put himself in service of his fellow musicians. As always, Jannuska shows that he is a great musician, which we can’t repeat enough. The association with Schorp promises fine new musical horizons.

The compositions are all signed Tam de Villiers. Clever, subtle, varied, they explain without doubt the enthusiasm of the musicians. “Infinity Fragment”, for example, is a free blues with a spacious sonority (due to the saxophonist’s effects) on which De Villiers brings density and flamboyance. “Lexicon” offers an exuberant and deliciously off-beat guitar/sax flight of fancy. Finally on “Ersatz Ego”, the saxophonist uses wah-wah effects (which was already the case with Marthouret) which forms a counterpoint to the texture of the first part, solid and well anchored in a very groovy mainstream jazz. Schorp tears us away from this comfortable torpor with a devilish riff and leads us, in the second part, to an exciting theme and an oscillating plunge interpreted by a more rough sounding guitar and a mocking sax.

Listen after listen, Alba Lux reveals itself as a fascinating album on which one could speak about indefinitely with there being so much to say. The best is to simply listen to it and enjoy. And to watch closely the steps of Tam de Villiers.