Gypsy jazz, Jazzy Bazz, techno: a tour of Nancy Jazz Pulsations 2022 – Radio Nova

For nearly 50 years, in Lorraine, the first freshness that has spread to the region has heralded the pulsations to come. We know it, we feel it, we shiver in advance. ” In general, in Nancy, when we put the coat back on, it’s because NJP is coming! “, confides Thibaud Rolland, director and programmer of a festival – before him, it was Patou Kader who held the reins – that he first knew as an intern, before taking over the direction there is four years. Including two years of Covid.

Nancy

With the pandemic, two years ago, the association that manages the festival had to reorganize the site of the Parc de la Pépinière (the epicenter of the festival), from which we reach from the splendid Place Stanislas (built in 1755 and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site), around a giant marquee with 3,000 seats and a Magic mirror (a Cabaret Sauvage type wooden cabaret) with 500 seats.

For the rest, if we haven’t organized any more concerts in garages in Mirecourt for a while (a town of 5,000 inhabitants, in the Vosges, where the saxophonist Dexter Gordon had come to play!), other lives have place, for ages, throughout Lorraine, but also in schools, in hospitals, in prisons. In intramural Nancy, the festival takes place throughout the city: in bars during the day, in theatres, in the local SMAC (L’Autre Canal), at the Opera and even in the Saint-Epvre Basilica, where November Ultra will soon be performing, the same evening as L’Entourloop, Biga*Ranx, Vitalic or Ambrose Akinmusire. Nearly 180 concerts for 140 artists. Vertigo.

” From its launch in 1973, the festival wanted to be eclectic “recalls Thibaud. It is perhaps even more so today than before, we note. The way of consuming music has changed, the musical genres that go with it. At the NJP (Nancy Jazz Pulsations, the term is reserved for those who have never been here!), as everywhere, we have adapted. ” Ray Charles came here in 1973. Then Daft Punk in 1997. Then it was the beginnings of M or those of Camille. This eveninghe says, a few hours before the molten volcano that the Chapiteau du Parc de la Pépinière will become, it’s a rap scene almost unprecedented in the history of the festival that we decided to set up “.

Jazz

A jazz festival, with Eesah Yasuke, Jazzy Bazz and Dinos on the bill, and an army of kids cheering them on? It’s 2022. It’s the eternal confusion, also and above all, that surrounds this word that means everything, and above all means nothing: jazz.

” Jazz today is influenced by the musical genres that it itself gave birth to. Soul, house, hip-hop, progressive music owe a lot to jazz. “Sister music sometimes, cousins ​​at the limit. “ We want to show jazz music played standing up like in New York, at the New Morning, the jazz that we really live ! “. At the NJP, it’s like in Montreux or Vienna, ” it’s a rather global vision of music by pressing on jazz “.

In short. Rather than launching into yet another discussion about what jazz is and what it isn’t (try to have the same debate with the terms “rock”, “rap” or “electro”, to see), let’s remember the word “pulsations”, because it is perhaps rather that, the most important word.

Thibault: ” The music is, most often, based on a rhythm. 60 BPM, 80 BPM, 120 BPM, 170 BPM… The Be-Bop, like on old Charlie Parkers, could go up to 220 BPM! I like the fact that it concerns all possible musical genres. »

The BPMs, the beats, the cadences, the rhythms, at the NJP, thus diverge considerably from one concert to another. And it is this diversity of style which also makes the richness of an appointment which has the merit of summoning an audience of notable diversity, where the headliners are rare (Bernard Lavilliers, Melody Gardot, who played at the Opera) and cutting-edge programming.

heartbeat

Salle Poirel (named after the architect who, at the end of the 20th century, built the place as an “Italian-style theatre”), we first attend Thursday evening the concert of Chapelier Fou, the producer and musician to whom we owe a few exceptional pieces (“Darling, Darling, Darling”, “Fritz Lang”, “Cyclope & Othello”) and which reinterpreted at Poirel, as on the disc released this year, his repertoire with the Ensemble. Instead of the usual synths, samplers and electronic wizardry usually used in the music of Le Chapelier, harmoniums, clarinets and metallophones invite themselves to the theatre. The play of lights splashes from the rosettes suspended in the sky, the notes fly high, up to the floor, the public catches them when they go up. A few moments of grace take us far away, where the mind wanders and lets itself be carried away by a je-ne-sais-quoi so strong that it drops us somewhere else.

Well, here we are with Murat. The singer from Auvergne, very familiar with the festival (already at NJP in 2002, 2004 and 2015) presents his latest album, The real life of Buck John, a cowboy, hero of Jean-Louis’ youth, whose adventures we follow. Loves built on rickety paths, initiatory journeys, quests without exits. The subject is pop, rock, jazzy, made up of long progressive tracks (“Jean Bizarre”, “To each his own way” or even “Frankie”, from his album Morituri) and a few heights (“Ma babe”, “To each his own way” and the very nice “Marilyn and Marianne”, in which circulate Bob Dylan, Barry White, Jupiter, Jesus Christ, Ravaillac…)

The next day, still in Poirel, the spirit of gypsy jazz takes over. The Dutch guitarist Stochelo Rosenberg in the second part and before him, a quartet (although announced as a trio) endearing and talented: Paquito Lorier and his son Sandro are inspired by Django Reinhardt, Be-Bop, Bossa d’Antonio Carlos Jobim and of course, flamenco by Paco de Lucia. Gypsy jazz standards, others from the repertoire of father and son. The youngest presents certain pieces, sometimes pushes the ditty. The fingers, on the guitars and the double bass, circulate quickly. Suspended above the quartet, squares, inverted triangles, circles, exclamation points in warm colors give the sensation of comets. Airs of Andalusia in Lorraine. The world is vast. The world is near.

NANCY YOU ARE TOO HOT

Then, direction the Parc de la Pépinière where, between midday and the beginning of the evening, the panorama changes. The area was calm, the weather was good, the sky was blue and the evening is a mess. Between Poirel and the Chapiteau, the average age has doubled. Tripled even, perhaps? Some now pay the pensions of others. The wheel spins.

“NANCY YOU ARE TOO HOT”, repeats as soon as he can Jazzy Bazz, very hot too and surprised by the intensity of those he calls “ the kids », they who, warmed by the live of Eesah Yasuke, know the fingertips (stuck to the smartphone, most of the time) the lyrics of the songs from Memoria (lots of jazz samples, that’s good), third album from this former member of the L’Entourage collective (Nekfeu, Alpha Wann, Deen Burbigo). ” No matter how long, the most important thing is that my life is intense “, he raps. ” Are you there or what? “. Oh yeah Nancy is here. Everyone with their arms in the air, noise, more noise, big mess, some classics like “5 o’clock in the morning” or “64 bars of spleen”, the rapper who slams, carried by the crowd who gets people moving the false, the stands, the guts of this rapper who works with “ with his heart and his conscience “. With a lot of talent, too.

Then comes Dinos, alone on stage (no back) with a sober, minimal play of light. The rapper has “left the tie-car”, comes to defend his album Stamina (+ Stamina, Memento)… and announce his upcoming album, Winter in Paris (apparently, there are CDs and vinyls provided for everyone, do not deprive yourself). It also indicates a date at the Accor Arena (March 10, you are invited), sometimes falls into too much ego (it’s like the ego-trip, but a little too much), too ends in the pit. ” Happiness is in the simple things “, he assures however. We do want to believe it.

” I’ll do it till we burn this track down, Nancy! “, he warns when singing” Xnxx “, one of his hits. ” The Champs Élysées shine with the light of Africa / Angels with bulletproof vests aim in my street / I want to change galaxy not even change country / My eyelids tremble alone, I’m nervous like the GTI / Tears on the floor, blood on the wall “. We start again. Several times. Yeah, it ended up working, and not just a little. In the pit, again. Mad energy, barge rage, vocal cords almost breaking. We end up with an uppercut that leaves everyone ko

BPM

A few meters from the Chapiteau, at the Magic Mirrors this time, the kids end the evening shattered by Makala’s live performance (a Swiss rapper of Congolese origin, who knows his way around afterwork parties). Others have reserved their place at L’Autre Canal, Nancy’s SMAC on the outskirts of the city (you cross the canal, ten minutes on foot, that’s good), the evening is placed under the influence of the 140 BPM of techno music. The pulsations are first and foremost the work of the very underground Nancy collective CTL!, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary (happy birthday to them). In the room, kinds of stars on the ceiling and strobe lights. It’s another world where it seems easy to perch. Then, next door, the set of the Hamburger Helena Hauff, which mixes electro, EBM, techno, post-punk, everything that can make the body pulsate. Then it’s the black hole.

Until tonight. Your turn ! Today: Piers Faccini, Anne Paceo, Jungle by Night or Nina Attal… and every evening until Saturday October 15th. Place your betsstick together: you will be around 100,000 people over these two weeks of Nancy Jazz Pulsations.