Pierre de Bethmann - Complexe '2021

Tracks list

       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) 

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