Here is a disc of total improvisation.
Three jazz musicians, Humair, Malaby, and Chevillon, present a singular kind of music, the music of a specific moment in a life. Each of them plays with the maximum concentration, listening to the others; none of them is dependent on a text; everything is shared, each of them is equally responsible - and shows the same respect to the others. The result is "intercreativity", if I may put it that way, rather than interactivity. In order to meet the challenge of going into a studio and committing oneself to an unpredictable adventure, it's important for the partnersto choose one another; not only to admire each other, not only to enjoy playing together, but to have a feeling of total confidence: confidence in themselves and in the others.
Humair, Malabyand Chevillon, who have already met in other contexts and formats, here assert their immense experience and perfect mastery of jazz, it seems to me, in a sort of asceticism, sharing a single aesthetic, and show themselves to be essentially preoccupied with the search for a moment of truth in a constructive and generous tension. And yet I sense no austerity in this music, but rather a powerful expressive force irrigated by the pleasure of playing together with the feeling of spontaneity and liberty so characteristic of jazz.
As he takes us from incantation or imploration to obsessional, wild trance, Humair projectsand provokes unprecedented forms; Chevillon the tightrope walker advances towards other horizons to the point of paroxysm, while Malaby the bold explorer traverses these boundless open spaces from contemplation to lyricism of sound and combining the propositions so as to achieve instantaneous composition.
I remember Karlheinz Stockhausen telling the musicians he had chosen to improvise for him : "You have all the time and all the space."
Michel Portal
