Bleu / Denis Colin & la Société des Arpenteurs

Bleu

Blue, the primal colour of jazz, is cast in a new, fascinating shade by the Austrian trumpeter Lorenz Raab. His very own shade of blue represents the fathomless vastness and transparency of air and water, of the sky and the horizon, also depicting long urban nights, smoke of cigarettes, electricity. And then there is also that lucent blue at twilight where imagination and reality converge.

In Raab’s Trio Bleu tradition and modernity interchange their inherited functions; Instruments such as the dulcimer und the tuba – usually evoking rather rural associations get reshuffled to represent virtual volatility or the hectic of today, while the trumpet gently, indeed melancholically floats overhead. Conch shells promise closeness to nature, though, and a harmonium contributes spiritual depth. In Bleu, the different streams of the European jazz-experience are an outpour into a musical delta that in virtue of its ramifications and its abundance of musical species is just about overwhelming. Bleu is an experiment with an open outcome in which intuition gains the victory over reason. With this band the Austrian musician advances to become one of the most creative voices among European jazz-trumpeters.

Denis Colin & la Société des Arpenteurs

French clarinettist Denis Colin is one of the veterans of the European jazz emancipation. Since the 80s his trio is persistently experimenting on the fine line between chamber music and free jazz. Since 1995 he in addition is pursuing an entirely different concept with his variably sized project by the name of la Société des Arpenteurs (“Society of Land Surveyors”).

Point of departure for the group dynamics between the musicians was the engagement with silent movies. In the manner of a slapstick flick, Colin confronts his fellow musicians with abrupt transitions between musical moods, constellations and intentions. In this band the surprise factor is incomparably high and it is not for nothing that the group’s new album is titled Subject to Change. With the bizarrely tantalizing flow of his “Society of Land Surveyors” Denis Colin once more demonstrates that the roots of the avant-garde always lie in the past.

Bleu

Lorenz Raab trumpet
Ali Angerer tuba, e-dulcimer
Rainer Deixler drums, percussion

Denis Colin & la Société des Arpenteurs

Denis Colin bass clarinet
Tony Malaby saxophones
Sylvaine Hélary flutes
Antoine Berjeaut trumpet, flugelhorn
Benjamin Moussay Fender Rhodes
Julien Omé guitar
Stéphane Kerecki bass
Thomas Grimmonprez drums