(The Jean-Michel Pilc Interview)

JEAN-MICHEL PILC PRESS KIT INDEX

P.1 jazzblog.ca (interview by Peter Hum) P.7 NYC Jazz Record (review of DVD "Jean-Michel Pilc - A Portrait") P.8 Jazz Reviews (review of Mads Vinding Trio "Open Minds") P.9 NYC Jazz Record (review of Mads Vinding Trio "Open Minds") P.10 Cadence (review of Mads Vinding Trio "Open Minds") P.12 Chicago Tribune (review of concert with Moutin Reunion Quartet) P.14 Jazz Magazine (French review of Mads Vinding Trio "Open Minds") P.15 Politiken.dk (Danish review of Mads Vinding Trio "Open Minds") "I fell in love with the sound" (the Jean-Michel Pilc interview) -... ﬁle:///Users/jeanmichelpilc/Prou/Press 2011/jean-michel-pilc-in...

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Today is Monday June 27, 2011

"I fell in love with the sound" (the Jean-Michel Pilc interview)

By phum Mon, Jun 27 2011 COMMENTS(0) Jazzblog.ca

Filed under: Jean-Michel Pilc, Ari Hoenig, Interview, 2011 TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival, Francois Moutin

Of the interviews I've done with jazz players in recent memory, this one with pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, who plays in the delightfully unrestrained Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig trio on Tuesday at the NAC Fourth Stage, is my favourite:

If I could begin with just the absolute basics: How old are you? I'm 50 years old. I was born in 1960.

I consider that young because we're almost the same age. Well that's very nice of you, even if though it's not true.

Well then, I delude myself. Exactly.

And where were you born? I was born in Paris, France, born and raised there, I spent the first 35 years of my life in Paris. I moved to New York in 1994, so I was already 34 years old.

Do you live in New York or in Brooklyn? I live in Brooklyn actually. I was living in Brooklyn 10 years, then I moved to upstate in New York. Now I'm back in Brooklyn. I have two young kids, and for all kinds of reasons, economical, schools, my wife and I have decided to go back to the city, for a while. At least for a while.

If we could talk about your earlier days... if we could go back to childhood... I recall that you've said that it was the experience of hearing Bix Beiderbecke that had a very big impact on you. Can you elaborate -- tell me what happened. I do remember that my uncles were big fans of Bix. They were looking desperately to find vinyl records of him. At the time, they were pretty much impossible to find, strange as it seems. And finally they found one and they played it on their turntable pretty much right away, they couldn't wait, and I was in shock. I heard that sound, that way of playing, and I don't know, for me, it was like home. It was really like falling love, you know? You meet someone and you're in love, and you're like, how could I live without this person for so long? That's exactly how I felt. I fell in love with the sound.

I recently read that some eminent critic of the New York Times wrote about Bix Beiderbecke's solo in I'm coming Virginia, I believe. “Oh it's good, but try to imagine it played by Louis Armstrong.” I have to say that triggered for me an absolute disgust and hatred of that person, because this was exactly the solo that I heard first and made me fall in love with Bix, so it was like he insulted my wife. That's just a little aside.

But you know, of course, I fell in love with Louis Armstrong the same when I heard him. But I think Bix at the beginning touched me more deeply because there was something almost reticent, something very like, almost like a distance. There was this emotion, but it was at a distance. That's something that's always touched me and will always touch me. I feel the same with Miles Davis, for example.

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How old are your children? They are two years old. They turned two yesterday. They are twins ... as you can probably guess.

I was only wondering if... you could imagine them having some similar epiphany at their age, but I guess that's a few years down the road... It's a little bit young, but I won't be surprised. They are two years old, and when you play music for them, and you see the transformation -- the way they dance, the way they sing, the way they look, their eyes, everything changes. It's as powerful as what we feel when we're much older, but the only thing they can't really express it in words -- which might actually be for the best -- but they really feel music with the same strength as we do. I remember my daughter listening Ella Fitzgerald for the first time, she started crying. She wasn't crying because she was afraid of anything. She started crying with emotion, it was very obvious.

My boy is more on the rhythm side of things. My baby girl, she 's very much into voices and singers.

You make me wonder if this profound response to music runs in the family. I don't know. My uncles were definitely music lovers. My mother was a great singer, she never made a profession of it but she had a beautiful voice. Yeah, there is something running in the family for sure, even if I'm the only guy who decided to make it his job.

Now I understand that you are a self-taught musician... Yeah, I am.

... which throws me for a bit of a loop. Can you tell me, what went into teaching yourself so that you can perform and do music at the level you do it? People don't remember. People forget very fast. Basically everybody was self-taught until a few years ago, There was no jazz school. When you talk about jazz until Coltrane or until Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock those guys, nobody was going to music school. It didn't exist. Everybody was self-taught. And now, for some reason, things are forgotten so fast. People feel that it's not normal to be self-taught. I think it's actually normal to be self-taught and forgive me for saying that, not exactly normal to have to go to school to learn music.

It's very ironical what I'm saying, since I'm a teacher and I teach at NYU quite a bit. But what I tell my students I say I am a coach and I am teaching you to be self taught. I am teaching you how to work on music yourself. I'm not going to tell you anything. I'm not going to tell you what you should play or not play. That comes from you. What I'm going to try to do is share the passion, give you some fire, criticize you when I want, or congratulate you also when I think it's great, but it's more like coaching than anything else.

But for me, music is like a language, and let's go back to children. Children learn languages naturally and music is exactly the same. I think the public perception has been completely distorted it by the exaggerated importance that jazz education has taken, or music education in general. It can be great, it can be helpful, but basically, I think any great musician, they are self-taught.

But can I ask you, what were some of the milestones were with respect to your particular education of yourself? There were so many. I wouldn't be able to make a list. But I would say that my record collection was my teacher. I learned from the records. I had all those vinyl records of Bix, and Louis, and later Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin. What people call traditional jazz, which I don't even like those kinds of labels. I learned from the beginning of that music, and I'm very shocked sometimes o see students who don't know that part of jazz. They start with Keith Jarrett. And I love Keith Jarrett, that's not the point. So I really learned from the records. Basically what I did, I played records on my stereo and ran to the piano trying to do the same. It's imitation. It's like learning a language like I said. Same as a child. Hear the word and repeat it. I basically heard words in the records that those guys are telling me in music, and I wanted to be able to say the words the same way.

So I went to the piano, I imitated, sometimes transcribed, and of course I realized it was not that easy to do, but it was a very natural way of learning music. I learned it by oral tradition mainly from the records.

[Time for a video break. Here's Pilc playing Charlie Parker's My Little Suede Shoes -- PH]

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How old were you when you applied yourself in this way? It was a long period going from age 8 to age 18. The thing is that I was also going to school, I was a pretty good student, so music was always more of a hobby than an occupation. I realized it later it was my true passion.

I was pretty old already when I started playing with older musicians. I was 18, 19, and I was probably 20 or 21 when I started playing with really good musicians, And I was probably that age, 20, 21, when I started discovering what's called modern jazz. So It all came really late, but I think that's good, because it gave me time to really have a deep appreciation of everything.

It sounds to me like the fundamentals were certainly in place. Yeah, they are always to be worked and be reworked. But it's true that the process was very deep, instead of being, you know, “Oh I'm going to go to school for three years and learn jazz.” That's insane. That doesn't make any sense to me.

You mentioned realizing at some point that music was your true passion, so let me ask you a little about the detour on the way. I understood that you were educated as an engineer, and you worked as an engineer as well. Yeah, I did work for a company for like three or four years. It's not that I didn't like my job. But it's like being with a woman and being in love with another one. Every second I'm not making music is a lost second. I realized that basically, I respected my job, I respected the people I was working with who were great people...I wished the people in the music field were for the most part as great and as human as the people I met at the time in the science field, but that's another issue.

Also because I respected those people, at some point I had to tell them, listen, this is not what I want do, this is not my passion. I'm in love with something else and I have to be honest to myself, to you and to everybody, and become a musician. And as difficult as the decision was for obvious material reasons and everything, I didn't have much of a choice, you know? When you are in love, you don't have a choice. That's how it is.

But it took me a while to realize it. I think I had a lack of maturity at that time. I had to work for this company to really realize, OK, that's not right. And also the fact that I started playing at age 20 with great musicians made me realize pretty late that music was my true passion. So when I stated playing with those guys who were so great, I was like, that's so much better than anything I envisioned. I didn't know music was that great as an experience, as a feeling, as a physical sensation.

Who were some of those great players? Very easy. It was actually Francois Moutin with whom I'm playing in Ottawa in the Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig band. And his twin brother Louis who was a great drummer. We met in the school where I was studying... We were all studying to be engineers. I was the only one that actually did do it for real. Francois and Louis actually quit before it happened. They probably had understood before me what their calling was. So I played with Francois. I basically heard them play in a room in the school. It caught me ears from the other side of the door...saw these guys playing with some other good guys. I was like, gosh wow, I want to play with those guys. I started doing exactly that, They started bringing me to the jazz clubs in Paris to hear live music, which I really had not much idea of at the time. I was really still with my record collection. They also introduced me to modern jazz which I didn't know very well. The most modern thing that I knew was probably Charlie Parker. And so very quickly it triggered a whole thing in my brain. This in parallel with me starting to work was a very, very intense period for me. Lots of conflicts, it was pretty intense. it was exhausting.

How old were you at the time? I was probably 21, 22 at the time. I was basically working full time it felt like to me I was living a double life. The parallel with love works once again. Marry somebody and boom you fall in love with someone else. It was quite intense and challenging to say the least.

It was a few years afterwards that you determined what your calling was... and you spent roughly a decade or so in Paris before moving to New York... Yes, starting to play professionally, but that was a little bit later, because leaving my company was not as easy as it seems. It took me a few years, At age 27 I really became a professional musician. Then I started slowly and surely playing with more and more people. That leads up to when I was 33, and I was starting to enjoy a pretty nice career in Paris. That's when I realized I could almost predict everything that was going to happen from there, and since I'm kind of allergic to predictability -- or at least I was at that time -- I was like, maybe I should go to New York, after all, I was a jazz musician, maybe I should experience New York, and after a couple of months there, I realized for me probably, the right thing to do was

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to move there.

Were you able to go to New York with financial assistance of any kind? I had a grant that helped me, but most of it was more the savings I did in France in the last three years of my life there, I was playing a lot and I tried to save money, unlike when I was younger and spending it all, you know? Because I felt like I might need it and that was a good intuition. But of course the first couple of years in New York were pretty tight, you know? I had to be pretty careful. But for me there was not question that was what I had to do.

How do you compare the experiences you've had in New York with the years you had developing yourself in Paris? You know, almost by construction, I never compare anything to anything. I think it doesn't really mean much, you know what I mean? It's like the same parallel with love -- trying to compare different persons you've been with. It's completely different, but for me it's just two moments of my life, two feelings. I mean, I really see them as two different scenes in the same movie, you know, the movie of my life.

But I wouldn't compare them. I would say, obviously, New York and Paris are two very, very different environments with very different people, very different ways of life, of thinking. I wouldn't compare it. I actually love the difference because having lived in Paris all my life, I felt like being plunged into a completely environment was really great. Basically I was starting from scratch. I was resetting myself, you know, and I love that feeling. I think it's a great feeling for an artist, or for a human being in general, to be put back almost to zero and have to rediscover everything in another way. I love that.

If I can ask you about the experience of playing with Ari and Francois together... how far back does that go back? I know when you started to play with Francois, but when did you meet and begin to play with Ari? Ari I met in 1995, shortly after moving to New York. I was doing those jam sessions at Small's almost every night or every other night. Most of the jam sessions were OK but not really exceptional. Sometimes it was a little depressing because not much music was made, you know. But that one time I heard that one guy playing behind my back. I didn't even see him. It felt like somebody was bringing me to another planet, which to me is the mark of a great musician. I didn't even know how this guy looked like. So I turned back and I saw that extremely young-looking guy, and I was like, my gosh, this guy's really something, you know? So I took his number... and the first idea I had was that would be really interesting to hear how he and Francois and me would sound together...So I organized a session and we did a rehearsal at a friend's place and boom right away we hit it off...It was obvious from the first tune, from the first minute, that something very exceptional was taking place.

Why do you choose the world exceptional? What made it exceptional? Because it is, because it was. I don't know. I don't think I need a reason. I know it when I hear it. I know it sounds a little pretentious when you talk about your own things. I can find some other things exceptional. Thank God it's not only my thing that I find exceptional. The first time I heard Keith Jarrett playing standards with Peacock and DeJohnette. To me it was obvious from the first chord that it was exceptional....That's what I like about music. It's obvious right away. But when I started playing with those guys, from the first moment you feel like you are not on the planet earth anymore. You feel like suddenly you are carried to another place, and in that other place you do not exist anymore as a human being. Music takes over. Music takes you, Music takes the other guys, Francois and Ari, and does with you what it wants. And the only thing you have to do is obey, obey the music. That to me is an exceptional experience because it doesn't happen that often. But with those guys, I have to say it happens pretty much every time we play together. Which to me is still quite a thing.

When you use words like on another planet, things like that, I wonder, would you use the word spiritual as well? Oh no, I wouldn't use it because I never quite understood the meaning of it. I have some very dear friends who are very into spirituality, some others are into religion. But to me those two things were always very foreign to my perception. If you look outside of music, I'm a pretty irrational and boringly down-to-earth person. Sometimes spirituality to me is just a complicated way of talking about something that brings you emotion, you know? But the thing to me, emotional in life, I don't need to do anything in life to feel them in particular, with my family, with music. I feel emotions that fill my life, and I don't need the complements of those other things. I think those things like spirituality are religion are essentially needs rather than anything else. And needs that I do respect. But it's just not my thing. It's very personal. As long as you respect the other people. When you stop respecting the other people, spirituality or religion or lack of it, then it becomes a problem.

Now coming back to your playing with Francois and Ari...

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By the way, I want to emphasize the band with Francois and Ari is now under our three names. It's not my trio. It's not the Jean-Michel Pilc Trio. Nor do I want any more to be the leader of the band, because that's not the musical reality of it. It's now called Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig. The things is we don't even play originals. We just improvise on the stage, it can be standards or blues or grooves or whatever you like, and of course total improvisation...

but every member of the band brings the same thing since it's completely improvised music .So it is very important that the band should be billed under our three names.

Was that a conscious, group decision? Did you have a talk? Yes, yes. We talked. I said, you know, guys, if we do this band again, because we stopped doing it for a few years, if we do this band again I don't want to be the leader because it doesn't make sense to me for many, many reasons. Actually, we all agreed it should be Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig and what we should do is go on stage and play without preparing anything, without having any set list or anything. It should be completely, 100-per-cent improvised music, where each member of the band brings the same, equivalent amount of creativity and participation. We totally agreed on this and had a very clear talk about it.

When you say 100-per-cent improvised, it could be music out of the air, it could also be material from the common repertoire of jazz musicians... Yes absolutely. We do play standards, but we could play a standard one way on Tuesday and the other way on Wednesday and you don't even feel it's the same piece. There is no arrangement, sometimes the tempo, the meter, the key signature, everything can be completely different. Basically to us, even when we play a standard, it's a way to create a brand new piece of music every time. The standards are just a support to the creative process.

Can you elaborate on why is this approach is so important to you? It's not an approach. It's how we feel it. I don't like the word approach because there is something intellectual in it and this is not intellectual at all. It's just that we realized that when were playing on stage, every time we were doing just that, that's when we felt the best, and that's when we felt that the music was best. We said, Let's do what makes us feel the best and makes the music feel the best.

It was not an approach. An approach means that you make a decision or have a goal. To us goals and decisions are completely out of the picture. The only thing we obey to is the music and our feelings. It's a slightly different thing. In a way, there is no why to it... And again, you can compare it directly to love. It's just we love this and that's what have to do. It's very simple really.

I suppose we may not call it an approach, but we can say it is different from other instances where there is an approach. Yeah, I do understand and I agree with you. I would say 99 per cent of jazz is based on intellectual decisions. I feel that's what has taken me away from a lot of this music, to be quite frank. I hear music that has become almost like a political statement all the time. And people are very political not only in their behaviour, which I don't really like, but also in the music itself. It's like I want to have this or that angle. I want to have this or that approach or concept. I don't know man. To me that's not the right way to make music. I'm sorry I might sound a bit intolerant here, but what I hear sounds artificial and boring and slightly pretentious. That has taken me away from jazz a lot. When you listen to Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker or John Coltrane or Miles Davis, you hear people who just play, who just expressed themselves in music who just talk the only way they can talk. You know, Louis Armstrong notoriously said, if you ask what it is you will never know. That's exactly true. It's again like love, it's a feeling.

And I regret to say that I feel very, very foreign to most of my colleagues who have changed jazz into some kind of an intellectual construction. I know it's very impressive to critics and allows them to elaborate a lot, but I'm sorry to say I don't like that way of making music.

Or at least to rephrase a little bit better: I don't relate to that way of making music. That probably sounds a little bit less aggressive. It 's not that I don't like it. I personally cannot relate to it. And you cannot really criticize something you don't understand. I would just say it's something that's not part of my sensibility.

Are you still exposing yourself to new music in recordings, keeping up? To my shame, not exactly as much as I should but the thing is, I've tried., I've listened to lots of stuff on YouTube, Myspace, I've been disappointed so many times by the emotional dryness of the music that's been made these days, I gave up..Because I don't have much time, playing music, practising, composing, raising my kids, loving my wife and kids, that doesn't leave you much time...When I listen to music, I want to be really sure I'm going to love it because I cannot really waste much time anymore.

So now I have to say to my great shame that I'm kind of conservative. Which means I put stuff on my stereo that I know I'm going to like because

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I really need to enjoy the moments, which are rare. ... mostly classical music. Beethoven, Schubert. Mozart. A lot of it is romantic, classical music 19th century, which I've always been very much in love with. I can play the same Symphony by Beethoven every day for a month. I'm pretty obsessive person when it comes to listening to music.

You make me wonder, to what extent or degree do you feel you are part of a jazz community? None. I don't feel part of any community at all. I am extremely, extremely wary of anything grouping people together. I'm very wary of anything resembling a community because, you know, there is this French singer named Georges Brassens who says as soon you are more than three people together, you become a crowd of idiots. It's a little bit extreme, but it's kind of true. I'm very wary about anything that masses of people can do together. I'm really very much of an individualist. I have met in the music world great people and terrible people and I couldn't say that I'm part an any community that integrates both. If you say are you part of the jazz community, I will have to say here are the guys I really like to play with hang with. And here are the guys I don't like, and I will realize it's not a community to me, just an arbitrary group.. And like I said in many cases I don't even relate to the music itself. the only thing that groups us together is the choice of the word jazz, which doesn't even mean much.

So I would say, for me, life is basically made of what I like on one side and what I don't like on the other side. That's pretty much the closest I can get to any kind of any kind of community feeling.

I don't think that's a satisfactory answer but that's pretty much how I feel. I'm what you would call an individualist. I believe when the individual is exceptional...I don't know if I am such an individual ...I believe an individual can really change the world, When you think of people like Gandhi, Einstein or Beethoven, that to me is valuable, but as soon as you get to mass phenomenons, I'm much more in doubt that it can bring anything, and history shows that it can definitely bring something very, very bad. I think we know that.

If I can come at this another way, I think I know the answer, but I'll ask anyway, to what extent do you feel you're part of a tradition or a jazz tradition or a jazz piano tradition? That doesn't mean anything to me. As soon you put words on music, it sounds wrong to me. Jazz tradition? I don't even like the word "jazz." I don't even like the word "tradition." You have people who follow the tradition but some sound good and some sound terrible. What does that mean? Some people have completely idiosyncratic ways of playing that is very far from what you call tradition and it sounds phenomenal. And again some will do the same thing and it will sound terrible. So it doesn't mean anything. When you put labels on music you always fall short, it simply doesn't tell you how the person is playing. I go back to my individualistic view of things: What counts is how the musician is playing. If you go into a club and hear a genius, boom, that's it.

Who do you consider as geniuses of music? Oh man, many people. Music has been blessed with lots of geniuses... Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Miles Davis. Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Gil Evans, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker ... should I continue? It's insane actually. I wouls ay of more recent vintage... people like Wayne Krantz on guitar, or Sam Newsome on soprano saxophone would fit the bill for me... But there are many others. list is long.

And I consider Francois and Ari as geniuses. I am lucky. I don't know how many geniuses there are in the band. I can only hope there are three but I'm pretty sure there are at least two.

Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig plays Tuesday, June 28 at 7 p.m. in the NAC Fourth Stage.

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!""!#$%&'!(()*+,-.$/0-1-!"#$%&$'()*++ 22 Jazz Reviews: Open Minds Mads Vinding Trio — By Mike Sha... ﬁle:///Users/jeanmichelpilc/Prou/Press 2011/27665-open-minds...

06/04/11 Mads Vinding Trio Open Minds Storyville

By Mike Shanley

Bassist Mads Vinding begins his latest album with two songs closely associated with Miles Davis, and approaches them with more abstraction than the trumpeter did in the 1960s. On “Someday My Prince Will Come,” pianist Jean-Michel Pilc tiptoes around the melody, delaying phrases and cleverly catching up with them before the next change. “My Funny Valentine” becomes a wonderfully dark dirge, rendering the central theme unrecognizable without a diligent search for it.

Things really get wild when they take on “Summertime,” playing it in a fashion combining Duke Ellington’s infamous 1961 trio version with Cecil Taylor. In case it isn’t obvious, all of these attributes are positive: Taking these standards and interpreting them anew makes this an enjoyable outing.

Vinding has played with drummer Billy Hart for more than three decades, supporting Stan Getz and Hank Jones, among others. Pilc comes to the duo fresh, and he displays a diversity that ﬁt right in. Along with his raucous “Hardly Like an Evening Sunset” (clever title, no?), he later shows a tender side on the ballad “Sam.” The trio’s cohesion is never more evident than on the title track, a set of short motifs including a delicate bass intro and some free ﬂying, each section stopping on a dime. Their speedy version of “Straight No Chaser” might be a little too uptempo, but album closer “I Skovens Dybe Stille Ro”—a traditional Danish song led by the bass—rights that wrong by ending the project on a strong spiritual note.

BUY THIS ISSUE Originally published in June 2011 BUY THIS ALBUM from Amazon.com

1 of 4 1/1/12 8:32 PM ***** K/$$,2$)0*9$%8$4783%3*/$%*#3%*297%0-9%*.$%*/%/0$%/-+$%76% «ROGUEART» /0-9% 9$99-7#A% J0$% 674"9% -9% ,87.8$99-C$% $*82=% >_'9% MUSIC – BOOKS - MOVIES 8$,$8/78=%*#3%R*8/>9%687#/2-#$%,2*=$89;%/8"+,$/$8%!*97#% `*2+$8%*#3%*2/7-9/%H7.*#%X-40*8397#;%58-#.%*%8*F78>9? $3.$%G"*2-/=%/7%/0$%+"9-4A%a#678/"#*/$2=;%,-*#-9/%W*#% WILLIAM PARKER J$,6$8%-9%91*2271$3%",%-#%/0$%+-@%*#3%/0$%52$#3%76% ,-*#7% 1-/0% U-40*$2% `-#/7>9% C-58*,07#$% +"33-$9% /0$% 0*8+7#-4% 2*#394*,$% ?% $C$#% -6% J$,6$8% *#3% `-#/7% 57/0% ,2*=% 9",$852=% /087".07"/A% )08-9% J783-#->9% 5*99% $#39% CONVERSATIONS '-,2)63"670*!8-92)63%* ",%5$-#.%7#$%76%/0$%5$//$8?4*,/"8$3%9727%-#9/8"+$#/9A%V6% 3B*3#:.AAHI7@ /0$%,873"4/-7#%7#%<*C$DEF*49$%-9%97?97;%/0$%+"9-4%-/9$26% J6#L878C -9%9/87#.A%R*8/%58-#.9%*#%*3C$#/"87"9;%6-8+2=%91-#.-#.% 38-C$% /7% ,-$4$9% 5=% N8-4% W72,0=;% U*2% ^*2387#;% K*+% 2011 )*+,-#.%-#%/0$%1-23%4*#%5$%6"22%76%,87+-9$:%7129%077/;% X-C$89% *#3% !*<-% B=*83A% R$% 7,$#9% 1-/0% I8#$//$% <*/=3-39% 48$*<;% 1-#39% 9-.0% *#3% #-.0//-+$>9% *?/-#.2$% )72$+*#>9% $/0$8$*2% Z^0*/% X$*97#[% *#3% *297% .-C$9% *% 1-/0%*"8*2%$@4-/$+$#/A%B"/%*#%7C$8379$%76%6$8*2%#7-9$9% ,2*/678+% /7% J$,6$8% *#3% `*2+$8% *9% 47+,79$89:% /0$% 4*#%7C$8*4/-C*/$%/0$%-+*.-#*/-7#%*#3%58-#.%7#%6$*8%*#3% 678+$8%1-/0%/0$%&'?5*8%52"$9%Z`"#4/"*/-7#9[;%/0$%2*//$8% «ROGUEART» D1$/E% 427/0-#.:% =7"% 1*#/% /7% 9+*90% /079$% 0"++-#.% 1-/0%/0$%5*22*3%ZJ0*/>9%!"9/%H7C$2=[%D10-40%-/%-9EA 5".9;%9077/%/0$+%1-23%/0*#.9;%.$/%7"/%76%/0$%9/78+%*#3% @&-/)&#);%*%G"*8/$/%3-94%687+%5*8-/7#$%9*@7,07#-9/b 07+$%/7%=7"8%47F=%G"-$/%5$3A%% 5*99%42*8-#$/-9/%B8-*#%H*#38"9;%6-#39%R*8/%-#%*%9",,78/% DURING THE LAST 10 YEARS, WILLIAM PARKER INTERVIEWED % B"/%6-89/;%*%2-//2$%#*/"8*2%0-9/78=A%!70#%H-#35$8.;% 872$%*27#.9-3$%,-*#-9/%U-40*$2%)*-#%*#3%5*99-9/%H7##-$% 32 OF HIS FRIENDS MUSICIANS AND ARTISTS. -##7C*/-C$%*#3%6$*82$99%5*99-9/;%-9%BHIB>9%47?67"#3$8A% `2*@-47A%J0$8$>9%#7%97#-4%7C$848713-#.%0$8$A%J0$%/-/2$% PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACQUES BISCEGLIA, J$$#*.$%H-#35$8.%47?67"#3$3%K/8-#.%J8-7%76%L$1%M78<% /8*4<;%47?47+,79$3%5=%H*#38"9%*#3%)*-#;%-9%*%6271-#.% EDITED BY ED HAZELL + A CD OF BASS SOLOS AND EXCERPTS OF INTERVIEWS 1-/0%!*+$9%N+$8=%*#3%/0$%2*/$%B-22=%B*#.%-#%(OPP;%/0$#% 1*2/F%/0*/%9,7/2-.0/9%R*8/>9%3-9/-#4/-C$2=%9"5/2$%*44$#/9% Q7-#$3% R"+*#% S8/9% N#9$+52$% -#% (OPT% *#3% S#/07#=% *#3% 48799?80=/0+9A% R*8/% -9% *297% 5"9-2=% "#,8$3-4/*52$% There is a special level of trust and understanding that artists B8*@/7#% -#% (OPOA% R$8$;% *92*#/% *% G"*8/$/;% H-#35$8.>9% 7#% ZH=3-*#% c[;% H*#38"9>% +79/% 9/8-<-#.% 78-.-#*2;% *#3% reach when speaking with other artists. 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Jean-Michel Pilc joins Moutin Reunion Quartet - Chicago Tribune http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-01/entertainment/ct-l...

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Home ! Collections ! Music Ads By Google A Herculean pianist redefines a Recommend seasoned band 0 StumbleUpon0 May 01, 2011 | By Howard Reich | Arts critic Submit Tweet When an outside musician steps into a long-running band, the sonic balance of power shifts. In the case of the explosive Moutin Reunion Quartet, which opened a two-night run Friday at the Green Mill Jazz Club, the personnel change produced triumphs and disappointments.

The absence of pianist Pierre de Bethmann, who's recovering from an accident, meant that Jean-Michel Pilc would be manning the keyboards. Pilc plays jazz the way Vladimir Horowitz played the classics: volcanically. So a great deal of listener attention inexorably gravitates toward Pilc, particularly when he flexes his famously Herculean technique.

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Add to this the formidable partnership of bassist Francois Moutin and drummer Louis Moutin – twin brothers who approach rhythm with nearly identical ferocity – and three-quarters of the band frequently Related Articles operates on overdrive.

Colossal pianist Pilc storms Chicago This hyperactive approach often left tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza, long an integral member of the May 14, 2010 Moutin ensemble, acoustically overwhelmed. Though Margitza easily held his own when it came to matters of harmonic sophistication and originality of phrase, his tone wasn't nearly hefty enough, nor Upcoming performances at Club Blujazz sufficiently textured, to withstand the onslaught. The combination of drummer Louis Moutin's aggressively April 18, 2010 sharp attacks, bassist Francois Moutin's relentlessly driving lines and pianist Pilc's avalanche- upon-avalanche of notes often made Margitza sound slight. Cool jazz will be flowing all weekend June 20, 2008 On the other hand, to hear Pilc powered by the rhythmic force of the Moutin brothers was to gain new appreciation for the pianist's work. Even without accompaniment, Pilc offers a galvanic approach to the art Skokie Theatre reborn as a world-class jazz of improvisation: Few jazz pianists can match the speed of his thought or execution, much less the venue muscularity of his playing. April 29, 2007 With the Moutin brothers hitting hard in original compositions, Pilc dialed up the intensity level, playing faster, louder and harder than ever – yet, somehow, with as much precision as always. Better still, Pilc augmented his pianism with solos on Fender Rhodes electronic keyboard, bringing brilliant swirls of color Find More Stories About to the Moutin experiment. Music The musicians took a bit of a breath in a single ballad during the first set, and here saxophonist Margitza Entertainment was able to state his case more effectively. His ability to forge unusual, angular lines and to explore Review unconventional harmonic directions attested to the craft of his work (which has been showcased more effectively in the past in his solos with the Maria Schneider Orchestra and in Chicagoan Jim Trompeter's quartet).

Nowhere did the Moutin band cohere better than in the grand finale of its first set, "Soul Dancers" (the title cut of its most recent recording). Here everyone contributed to the near-frenzy of the piece, the ensemble

1 of 2 1/1/12 8:31 PM Jean-Michel Pilc joins Moutin Reunion Quartet - Chicago Tribune http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-01/entertainment/ct-l...

building rhythmic momentum with every bar. Though the Moutin brothers didn't offer a great deal of subtlety (here or elsewhere in the show), the sheer unstoppable energy of the quartet's performance swept all other considerations aside. At least while "Soul Dancers" surged to its hysterical finish. [email protected] Twitter @howardreich

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