Quentin Dujardin & Olivier Ker Ourio - Serendipity (2024)

The word ‘serendipity’ entered the French language very recently. Its broad definition is the gift of making fruitful discoveries by chance, providing a form of understanding around the unexpected.

Olivier Ker Ourio and Quentin Dujardin met in 2016 during a recording session with Richard Bona, Manu Katché and Ivan Paduart. A shared feeling for melody led them to this obvious fact: they would one day make a record together documenting the intensity of the original sound that they sensed. Since this happy encounter, time has done its work around their respective musical approaches: jazz for the harmonica player, crossover for the guitarist.

Open this album with great fanfare is an astonishing cover of the famous jazz standard by Charles Mingus, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. It sets the opening scene: a sound universe filled with bright and warm colors. Olivier Ker Ourio remains close to his native country, Reunion, and the rocky reminiscences in the blues that it carries. Quentin Dujardin, for his part, transports us with freshness to an almost Malian groove topped with slide guitars.

To their great astonishment, a single day in the studio was enough to record the intensity of this moment, posed between softness (Eva) and slow tempo (Serendipity). The expert work of sound engineer Rémi Bourcereau marvelously reveals this diversity of dialogue, oscillating between flamenco (Song for Paco), classical (Ave Maria) and even blues (Blues for M&N). Furthermore, their common island imagination is never far away. You just need to listen to Madagascar.

Let’s also note the nod to Toots Thielemans in a new version of Quentin’s composition En t’attendant, originally recorded with him in 2010 for the album Impressionniste. Olivier Ker Ourio gives us a very personal and magnificently inspired version.

To conclude this voyage, David Linx is the guest of choice for a moment suspended around the song Shy Away.

This record crosses an ocean of blue notes, alternating between calm and stormy seas. The waves carry us from one port to another. A journey towards immense spaces, thanks to the benevolence of chance: serendipity.