Sep 14 2017
Now seems like an ideal time to talk about Jean Lapouge
Jean Lapouge has a new album out, and he’s also dusting off some of his older recordings, too. This seems like a good time to give a rundown of one of my very favorite guitarists, a musician who spins sonic beauty quite unlike anyone else.
It’s a curious beauty. It’s not your typical pretty sounds, even though there are plenty moments that seem to embrace those qualities. This Sarrazac-based guitarist endows his music with an affectation of populism and idealist postures, as if it were a cryptic equation capable of obliterating the veil between the waking and dream worlds. His is music for the masses one individual at a time, and each in their own way. It is not unlike how a blizzard affects the crowd, but each person views it only through their very own unique set of snowflakes. That’s the music of Jean Lapouge.
Let’s begin…
Jean Lapouge – Temporare
Some music just sounds pretty when all evidence indicates that it shouldn’t. Jean Lapouge’s 2011 release Temporare makes for an excellent Exhibit A. As dreams can be both serene and terrifying, Temporare shows no inclination to draw a dividing line between the varied emotions this album evokes. There is tension throughout the recording, even when tranquility rules the moment. And there’s plenty of edge, to boot. “My Song Goes Wrong” is just one example of many where a piece with a lullaby demeanor, at times, jabs and flails and speaks of anything but peaceful night’s sleep. Lapouge’s guitar melts into a melody with Christiane Bopp‘s trombone while threading the rhythmic needle of Christian Pabœuf‘s vibraphone patterns. It is haunting music, and yet terrifyingly beautiful. It was also one of the very best things to come out in 2011, and it still is.
Your album personnel: Jean Lapouge (guitar, guitar synthesizer), Christiane Bopp (trombone), and Christian Pabœuf (vibraphone, oboe).
Released on Musea Records. Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic
Jean Lapouge – Des Enfants
What a cold person you must be not to fall in love with the lullaby melodies of Des Enfants. As opposed to the uneasy serenity of Temporare, this 2012 release employs a far softer touch. And this applies to those tracks that let out a roar like “Les Américains” and those that stomp their boots like “Two Days Before,” just as it does the sing-song title track. But the heart of this album is reflected in how “Les Soldats” lets linger the suggestion that the intensity could suddenly spike, but harnesses that energy, instead, to make a softly spoken melody resonate with incredible strength.
I could listen to this album forever, and I’ve spent the last handful of years proving it. It received the #24 slot on this site Best of 2012. Here’s a link to some reasons why.
Your album personnel: Jean Lapouge (guitar, guitar synthesizer), Christiane Bopp (trombone), and Christian Pabœuf (vibraphone, oboe, bass flute).
Released on Musea Records. Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic
Jean Lapouge Trio – Plein Air
Lapouge’s 2014 release Plein Air is about as close to a standard guitar album as he’s likely to get. That said, his trio with drummer David Muris also has the cello of Grégoire Catelin, so perhaps even using the word standard is out of line. But being that as it may, the amiable chatter of “Par la côte” and the get-up-and-go of “En Campagne” stray far from the contemplative ambiance and thickly-layered melodicism of previous collaborations. That said, the addition of cello opens up all kinds of melodic possibilities, and the trio takes advantage of each and every one. Tracks like “Acteur fétiche,” “Mario” and “Un hymne” open with languorous passages that eventually shift into weightier passages as they achieve a captivating volatility, and these are where to find the heart of this lovely recording.
I wrote more about the recording when it first came out.
Your album personnel: Jean Lapouge (guitar), Grégoire Catelin (cello) and David Muris (drums).
Released on Musea/Great Winds Records. Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
Noëtra – Neuf Songes
The word is that the music of Neuf Songes was destined for release on ECM Records, but it just never quite happened. A shame, really, because not only would this older material from Lapouge’s Noëtra ensemble have fit in perfectly with ECM’s output back in the 80s, it might’ve had an impact on the label’s existing stable of musicians. It has the dramatic orchestration and the introspective interludes, the prog-jazz hopscotch precision and the jazz-folk fusion that embodied a segment of the modern jazz scene of the 1980s… but Noëtra brings all of those elements together in remarkably vibrant ways. It just resonates brilliantly. And how nicely it would have sat beside ECM Records works by Eberhard Weber, Steve Tibbetts and Miroslav Vitous.
Thankfully, Lapouge has loaded this album up on his Bandcamp page and made it accessible to present-day listeners. I gotta say, it holds up remarkably well. This music’s ability to enchant hasn’t waned even a little bit.
Your album personnel: Jean Lapouge (guitar), Christiane Bopp (trombone), Christian Pabœuf (oboe, flutes), Denis Lefranc (bass, tuba, voice), Daniel Renault (drums, percussion, violin), Pierre Aubert (violin), Pascal Leberre (clarinet, tenor & soprano saxes), Francis Michaud (flute, tenor & soprano saxes), Denis Viollet (cello), Claude Lapouge (trombone), Jacques Nobili (trombone) and Laurent Tardif (alto flute).
Released on Musea/Great Winds Records. Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
And now, finally, let’s talk about the new release from Jean Lapouge…
Jean Lapouge Trio – Hongrois
Lapouge’s newest recording has him sticking with the same trio that led to the success of Plein Air. It also reveals a clearer image for how Lapouge wants things to shake out. This music sounds crisper and rings with clarity. Revealingly, there isn’t the ebb and flow of melodic control between guitar and cello. On Plein Air, there were the “guitar songs” and the “cello songs.” That back and forth led to some intriguing moments. But the synthesis between the two instruments on Hongrois utilizes those same tools of intrigue, and focuses them through a much sharper lens, leading to some necessary cohesion.
Opening track “Naples” gets right to the heart of the matter with two sections of guitar-cello unity book-ending a more conventional trading of ideas between all three musicians. It doesn’t pick and choose which instrument will be in ascension; it simply allows shifts of focus to occur while keeping the entire picture in the spotlight. But more to the point is the title-track “Hongrois” and how all three instruments come together in a way that makes it so the spotlight and the focus need not adjust or choose at all. And “Illusion du Fond” is illustrative of how comfortable the trio has grown with this approach in the way a song-like structure is the foundation for both jazz and blues and chamber streaks to seamlessly wash over one another, time and again.
Your album personnel: Jean Lapouge (guitar), Grégoire Catelin (cello) and David Muris (drums).
Released on Musea/Great Winds Records. Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
And remember, you can explore all of this music and more on Jean Lapouge’s Bandcamp page.
It’s with a workman-like attitude that 
Peregrino has got a little something of everything. The motion of the music is tango and tropanka, waltz and twist, foot taps and head bops and long slow dances with someone held close. It’s music from Argentina and Mexico and the Balkans and NYC to the north and Tuscon to the south. This music is the salt of the earth and the story of the roots. There are moments when it is possible to get in sync with the surroundings, where the electric hum of The City is indistinguishable from the sound of blood flowing through veins and the heart beating like it means it. On their newest album, 
Sep 15 2017
Recommended: Jason A Mullinax – “Time Being”
“Time Being is a collection of studio experiments that I started about two years ago,” he explained via email. “I wrote and recorded the majority of the songs in my home studio, and once I established the frameworks, I contacted other musicians to see if they’d like to help me flesh them out.”
And much like BlueFly, Time Being didn’t come together instantaneously.
“The process was slow going because no two of us were ever in the same room at any given time. In fact, most everything was done online. I’d send my friends the tracks, we’d discuss ideas via email or phone, they’d send back their new parts and I’d drop them into my arrangement. I spent several months producing the songs and finalizing the mix, and although much of the record was created virtually, we tried our best to create the illusion of us being a band all jamming in a room together.”
Mullinax achieved a certain amount of success in that regard. He displays a strong talent weaving together the various contributions. The sign of that success is how filaments of music won’t necessarily dominate a particular piece, but they resonate with such a strength that they define the song they’re embedded within. There’s the twang of guitar strums on “Metalworks” and how they hint at a possible diversion into surf guitar before becoming subsumed by dissonance. The vibraphone and marimba on “The Next Time We Fly” is an undercurrent of melody, and yet it frames every one of the bold saxophone statements in a way that reverses the draw of attention. It’s a similar effect elicited by the hazy vocal harmonies and warped effects on “Henry’s Head,” which is more noticeable for its pretty melody and sing-song presentation.
But those are just a few of the details of an album that is built upon them. It’s a recording defined not by the crash of its waves, but the way ripples along the water’s surface capture sunlight and reflect it back with an entirely new and brilliant life.
Your album personnel: Jason A Mullinax (drums, percussion, bass, harmonica, guitars, loops, effects, glockenspiel, melodica, synths, vocoder, field recordings, thumb piano, xylophone, ukulele), Dave Newhouse (tenor, soprano, alto & baritone saxes, bass clarinet, flute, alto flute, wurlitzer piano), Rich O’Meara (vibraphone, marimba, keyboards), Seth Schowalter (guitars, bass, keyboards, alto harp, piano) and guests: Henry Mullinax (additional vocals), Logan Rainard (double bass, electric bass).
The album is Self-Produced.
Listen to more of the album on the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Music from Takoma Park, Maryland.
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2017 releases • 0