10/15/2014
‘ndiaz/ndiaz/Coop Breizh/2014
Personnel:
Youn KAMM: Trompette à quart de ton
Jérôme KERIHUEL: Tablas
Timothée LE BOUR: Saxophone
Yann LE CORRE: Accordéon chromatique
Invités:
François Corneloup: Saxophone baryton
Grégory Jollivet: Vielle à roue
You like playing jazz, and you like playing breton music. Do you play breton music influenced by jazz, or jazz music with breton themes mixed in? For the group ‘ndiaz, the answer is emphatically YES. Originally formed as a quick ‘one off’ project for the Festival Fisel as part of the “Les Confidences sonores” event by Jean-louis Le Vallégant, the players found that they very much liked what came out of this grouping and proceeded to turn it into a full time gig. Their eponymously named first recording is the fruit of this meeting.
“An Diaz, in Breton, means the foundations, the idea here being the harmonic, rhythmic and melodic base. This we represent well: we have only the minimum for dancing, just a fundamental energy. Moreover, with this name we play on the sounds and sound allusions to jazz, to India” stated Le Corre (Musique Bretonne magazine, N 238). The CD art conveys this idea very well, with the musicians being playfully covered in clouds of a few distinctly colored powders.
I was initially quite surprised when trumpet player Yoenn Le Cam left the great band Alambig Electrik to form ‘ndiaz. Alambig contains a lot of the same elements of jazz and world music that ’ndiaz does, so I was curious about the change. Listening to the recording the answer is soon evident. While Alambig relies on sampled material to bolster the sound and presents itself with tongue firmly in cheek, ‘ndiaz distinguishes itself by being a serious instrumental band and presents its mixture of musical elements directly through instrumental and compositional prowess. The players are all very impressive.
Yann Le Corre, previously of Karma, is one of the better players of chromatic accordion in Brittany. Youenn Le Cam (previously Alambig Electrik, Pevar Denn) not only plays trumpet and a single vocal track here but is also very accomplished on wooden flute and biniou. Saxophonist Timothée Le Bour has become an increasingly ubiquitous presence in interesting projects such as Idéal Jazz and his Le Bour-Bodros group, and for good reason. Percussionist Jérôme Kerihuel, (Didier Squiban, Dan Ar Braz, Erik Marchand) although indulging in a few annoying oddities that I will mention in a moment, fills the role perfectly, adding beautiful rhythmic support and a clever taste of world music flavor.
Unusual for a CD I choose to review, I have to admit that I immediately disliked ’ndiaz the first time I played it. The cause: the first track “Départementale” begins with hindustani-style ‘bol’ or consonant vowel sequences sung along with the tabla. Naturally I have heard this on recordings of north indian classical music, but also, and here is the problem, by countless cheesy rock and/or jazz groups from the 1970s. Although ably performed by Kerihuel, it is typically considered incredibly clichéd. I get that Kerihuel is obviously passionate about Indian music. Nonetheless, I think it would be a good move to limit the ‘bol’ in this setting. He also occasionally rings a little bell. Upon reflection, what we have here is a recording with a strong influence of specifically 1970s american jazz and fusion, with a nice streak of ‘Mahavishnu Orchestra’.
So the ‘ndiaz disc got a cursory listen and was shelved for a while, hence this review coming a year late. What got it back out was track 7, “Kerauffret”, the last of a 3 part “Rond de Loudéac” suite. This is an incredibly hypnotic piece of music well worth the price of entry for the CD just by itself. Track 6 flows right into it so there is a nice transition form the slower ‘bal’ section into the final part – see the promotional video below which presents a bit of this. Everything comes together here; the percussion, the twin voices of Cam’s trumpet and Timothée Le Bour’s saxophone playing call and response, the thick, gorgeous chords of Yann Le Corre’s chromatic accordion. This track was the ‘gateway drug’ for a fresh and more rewarding listen to a CD that, despite the occasional percussive oddities is one of the most interesting and inspiring pieces of breton music that I have heard in years.
-Fañch
