Sophie Alour - Joy (2020)

At creation, her project was called "Exiles", but saxophonist Sophie Alour felt so happy playing it on stage that she decided to give it the name "Joy".

After the homecoming of "A Time for Love", an album of ballads and standards inspired by her love of the jazz tradition, Sophie Alour took an opposite direction, that of the East. In the person of Mohamed Abozekry, she found an ideal partner to develop her writing and move towards these new musical territories for her. Designated in 2009 in Damascus as the best oud player in the Arab world of the year, this Egyptian virtuoso is not only of spectacular instrumental fulgurance but he is also a talented improviser, capable of venturing outside the orthodoxy of traditional music, revealing a real appetite for jazz (he notably crossed the path of the giant Randy Weston in 2016).

From the initial idea of ​​forming a trio with oud, Sophie has evolved into a quintet, sometimes extended to the sextet with Wassim Halal to the derbouka, in which the piano of Damien Argentieri and the drums of Donald Kontomanou have made their appearance, drawing the project towards a form of energy, groove and collective exultation. After a premiere at the Jazz festival under the apple trees, the saxophonist is about to spend two days in residence at the Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines followed by a concert, just before entering the studio to immortalize this project "which forces us to listen to ourselves and express ourselves in new ways ”. A great adventure in perspective.