Erik Truffaz – Revisite (2001)

The seven tracks on Revisité are "remixes" of tunes that Erik Truffaz, the adventurous French trumpeter, previously explored with his jazz quartet. In a bid to crosspollinate jazz with new sounds being explored in ambient and electronica, Truffaz enlists the talents of six guest artists to reinterpret his work through their own experimental points of view. Like Truffaz himself, these musical seekers hail from Europe -- Pierre Audétat, Alex Gopher, Pierre Henry, Goo, and Bugge Wesseltoft, as well as Mobile in Motion (Christophe Calpini and Fred Hashadourian), which splits "The Dawn" into two parts that respectively open and close the album. There's a mellow, even minimalistic vibe to much of the music, with the possible exception of Alex Gopher's party-worthy "Bending New Corners." Truffaz's sparse trumpet work over these electronic loops and grooves does, of course, recall Miles Davis, but what's interesting about this record, and others like it, is that it signifies a new direction in music -- not a throwback to fusion, not a concession to commercial pressures, but a fecund meeting of some very different yet complementary musical minds. Wesseltoft's dark blend of Rhodes, acoustic bass, drum samples, and rap vocal snippets on "Sweet Mercy" represents a new kind of musical mosaic, an idea with a very promising future.