Romain Pilon - Open Roads (2025) [Hi-Res]

Following Falling Grace, in which he explored standards in trio with drummer Jeff Ballard that racked up over 4 million streams, guitarist Romain Pilon opens up new musical horizons with Open Roads, an album that showcases his talents as a composer. Combining voices and textures with a subtle imagination, featuring one of those stellar line-ups that Romain Pilon has a secret for, this album combines an ironclad trio formed with bassist Orlando le Fleming (Ari Hoenig, OWL Trio) and drummer Mark Whitfield, Jr. (Kenny Garrett, Black Art Jazz Collective) and a quintet with an unprecedented combination of sounds, combining the trumpet of Belgian star Jean-Paul Estiévenart with Alexis Valet, France’s new kid of vibes. Evolving between the adventurous spirit of the Blue Note albums of the grande époque and a more contemporary ECM-type sound, showing the influence of Pat Metheny and Kenny Wheeler alike, Open Roads unveils a series of sensitive, poetic, lyrical and groovy tracks, unfolding a wide palette of emotions and colors, under the fingers of a guitarist whose reputation is well established. Why not join him on the roads?

Romain Pilon, guitar, compositions
Orlando Le Fleming, double bass
Mark Whitfield, Jr., drums
+
Jean-Paul Estiévenart, trumpet
Alexis Valet, vibes
on tracks 1, 2, 4 and 7.

All tracks composed by Romain Pilon.