Pierre de Bethmann - Complexe (2021) [Hi-Res]

Complexe. Naming an album after such an unpopular adjective surely entails some risk. At the start of a millennium that extolls all things ephemeral and immediate, hedonism and appearance, and at a moment in time when music is being turned into a commodity devoid of thought and permanence, Pierre de Bethmann is willing to associate his art with a word likely to turn away many a hurried ear. We won’t blame him for holding on to such wise standards. Pierre de Bethmann’s music deserves this qualificative not because of its extreme intricacy or some obsequious taste for farfetched elaborations. His music is complex in its form, to the extent that its structures and developments evade the age-old frame of jazz standards traditionally at work in the genre, seizing on unusual meters and superimpositions that musicians need to internalize before they can feel free to play around with them. This tweaking of form – to which each member of the quintet seems to yield effortlessly – provides a sort of stimulation and new circumstances likely to bring out each individual’s originality without curbing the instinctiveness of their expression. A firm believer in fruitful constraints, and of commitment as a conduit for innovative proposals, Pierre de Bethmann has tried out different composition ideas and produced a set of themes capable of spurring his creativity as well as his partners’. Contemporary jazz is less a matter of imitation than of emancipation, less a matter of styles than of individuals laying claim to a language developed throughout the 20th century. They take hold of its wealth of processes and intonations, shaping in turn their own narratives – although the best jazzmen have never turned a deaf ear to their seniors, or skipped the classics, which make for a necessary part of their schooling. While musicians may jam together to the standards, jazzmen and their bands also develop their own repertoires, wherein themes are no longer mere pretexts for improvisation. For musicians like Pierre de Bethmann (and many others), writing music means paying attention to tone-color combinations, tempo, the role and choice of solos, and above all to how the connection between improvisation and the initial theme plays out. In many a piece, the result is a narrow intricacy between written composition and the spaces dedicated to the solos, choruses, and refrains tucked in-between two bouts of improvisation. The porosity between written composition and its interpretation is enhanced by new elements arising in the heat of the moment. This framework, elaborate as it may seem, never fully departs from a certain lyricism, or the emergence of a voice, which the pianist strives to inspire in those around him. Pierre de Bethmann’s composition remains first and foremost intuitive. For this self-taught musician, whose formal training was acquired later on, a certain form of singability remains the ultimate measure of value. The sound of the Fender Rhodes has always been central to the band. Pierre never truly grew out of the piano, even after his seven-year adventure alongside the trio Prysm (he still plays the piano in David El Malek’s quartet, in saxophonist Pierrick Pedron’s sextet, and with harmonicist Olivier Ker Ouiro). The analog electric keyboard, which first became popular in the 1970s and was revived in the mid-1990s, compelled him to construct an entire repertoire built on its specificities. The Rhodes retains the percussiveness of the piano, with a snappy attack that highlights phrasing. But the fullness of each note, its undulation in time, and the additional effects capable of expanding the range of timbres provide musicians with a new sonic material to work with, its vibrational properties distinct from those of the piano. The sound of the Fender Rhodes marries with the guitar and the tenor saxophone, played by Michael Felberbaum and David El Malek respectively, two musicians Pierre de Bethmann was eager to work with. Felberbaum, an American based in Paris since 1991, ushers in dreamy nuances, a diffuse melancholy, and sophisticated glossy effects that can break into a rock thunderstorm. El Malek, a celebrated saxophone player, has crafted a fiery style whose developments display a depth and consistency rarely achieved to such a degree. Added to these original voices are two rhythmic partners, bass player Vincent Artaud and drummer Franck Agulhon, a dynamic duo capable of moving deftly through complex bars, shifting into swing, spinning out frisky grooves, and brilliantly responding to soloists’ expectations. This music’s complexity effaces itself, like any music that reaches a certain degree of achievement wherein form is no longer an obstacle but a stepping stone towards greater freedom. Along the lines of New York’s new wave jazz scene, which has sought to shake up the genre from within – thanks to the likes of Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Bill Steward, Reid Anderson, Chris Potter and others – Pierre de Bethmann’s music draws its substance from a reflection which engages the personality of each musician, evolving his style not out of compliance to formalism or some contrived mannerism, but out of an inventiveness that draws from complexity a more vibrant spontaneity. As such, his music never sounds demonstrative or calculated, but rather like an emanation from musicians in action – musicians in becoming. It opens within the agonistic moment of the studio or the stage a space heretofore only glimpsed at. Playing with harmony and flirting with odd meters, running along a dizzying crisscross of voices, his music never loses sight of the importance of the collective, of interactions inside the band, and of the excitement of the soloist irresistibly moved by the groove, all of which have always been jazz’s ultimate strengths. This music is complex, no doubt. As such, it resembles our present time: a time where individuals dream of existing to the same degree as the group they belong to, where limits are shattered and archetypes have ceased to mirror reality, where claims to modernity mix with the highest forms of classicism, and conversely… This vision of the world resonates with the type of jazz that Pierre de Bethmann and his band understand, experience, and play.


Tracklist:
01. Pierre de Bethmann - Prélude (00:59)
02. Pierre de Bethmann - Complexe (07:48)
03. Pierre de Bethmann - Hors Mode (07:18)
04. Pierre de Bethmann - Alter Eco (05:46)
05. Pierre de Bethmann - H (07:43)
06. Pierre de Bethmann - Chaos (07:15)
07. Pierre de Bethmann - Interlude (01:36)
08. Pierre de Bethmann - Lato Sensu (07:33)
09. Pierre de Bethmann - 76 (07:20)
10. Pierre de Bethmann - Moderato (04:45)
11. Pierre de Bethmann - Frasques (08:43)
12. Pierre de Bethmann - Knab (05:57)