Laurent Coq, Walter Smith III, Joe Sanders & Damion Reid - The Lafayette Suite (2015)

The Lafayette Suite is French piano player Laurent Coq s new album, co-signed with American saxophonist Walter Smith III. It was recorded in New York in September 2014 with a quartet featuring Joe Sanders on acoustic and electric basses and drummer Damion Reid. 'If the French jazz scene is exciting today, it s due in good part to piano player Laurent Coq' according to Télérama, which praises the pianist s creativity, his striking originality as a composer, as well as the rigor and inspiration of his improvising. A sideman with saxophonists Julien Lourau and Pierrick Pedron or singer Elisabeth Kontomanou in the past, Laurent Coq co-lead the project 'Rayuela' with alto player Miguel Zenon, and recorded several trio and quartet albums under his own name, garnering much praise from reviewers. Lafayette was a young aristocrat who left France in 1777 at only nineteen years old to fight alongside the American Insurgents against the British. This extraordinary adventure serves as inspiration for the ten chapters suite that Laurent and Walter co-wrote, each musician writing half of the songs. Through his rare commitment, Lafayette embodies the audacity and the capacity to dive into the unknown - qualities that jazz musicians have always strived to develop - and he symbolizes better than anybody else the friendship between France and America.