Today my guest is French contrabassist, vocalist, improviser and composer Joëlle Léandre.
(photo by JFPicaut)
When she first emerged on the european musical scene in the 1970’s, as a young conservatory student, she was quickly recognized as a major figure. She’s gone on to a career which has helped to define the nature of contemporary european music, both as an improviser deeply influenced by American free jazz, and as a sought-after virtuosic interpreter of the works of contemporary composers such as Cage, Feldman, Scelsi, Xenakis, Boulez and many more. She was playing in San Francisco recently after an absence of nearly ten years, at which time she made many friends and fans in the Bay Area with a long residency at Oakland’s Mills College. We started our conversation talking about her early days at the Conservatory in Paris around 1970.
the artists seem to downplay their achievement as something they just tossed together in the living room during pandemic lock down. Yet, it is a highly original take on the classic drums/sax duo. A huge range of musical ground is covered, and emotional content. A great album in any context, I listen to it often. bob3
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