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Martial Solal


Daniel A

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  • 5 weeks later...

He's playing solo at the Village Vanguard in early October.

That's going to be his second appearance ever at the VV.

First time he played there was a few days after September 11, 2001 and the city was not in the right mood to enjoy Solal. Hope nothing like that is going to mar his return visiit to the club!

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He's playing solo at the Village Vanguard in early October.

That's going to be his second appearance ever at the VV.

First time he played there was a few days after September 11, 2001 and the city was not in the right mood to enjoy Solal. Hope nothing like that is going to mar his return visiit to the club!

This first appearance at the VV was recorded:

512ZW4RH09L._SS500_.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

A review of Martial Solal's appearance at the Village Vanguard in The New York Times today

ONE MAN, ONE PIANO, MANY POSSIBILITIES

By Ben Ratliff

The pianist Martial Solal opened his week at the Village Vanguard on Tuesday night by rolling through tunes that jazz musicians have been amusing and sharpening themselves with for 50 years or more. They included “Cherokee,” “Body and Soul,” “’Round Midnight” and “I Got Rhythm” — songs whose chord changes built a whole suggestive vocabulary for improvisers.

This is only the second time at the Vanguard that any performer has installed himself for a week of solo sets. (The pianist Fred Hersch did it last year.) But Mr. Solal, born in Algiers, long resident in Paris and a rare visitor to the United States, is used to this discipline. He did it a lot in the 1970s, when solo performances seemed a rich frontier for every kind of jazz musician, and he has kept solo piano in his portfolio ever since, alongside trios, big bands and other possibilities.

What he did on Tuesday was to wander away from just about every through line of these songs except the chords. One of the world’s most imposing jazz musicians — being 80 has not dimmed his agility or his imagination — he interpreted each passing moment of the songs as a provocation: spinning out a quick cycle of chords from just one, or interrupting the shape of a melody to add on a whole new structure, invented at breathtaking speed.

It was easy to see him as a manic builder, a modernist renovator, coming up with expansions and compressions everywhere but somehow honoring the fundamental flow and beauty of the building. He did take songs apart, but he never entirely betrayed or abandoned them, and you could quickly identify what he was playing.

The major precedent in this line of work is Art Tatum, and the influence was clear. But the big differences come from Mr. Solal’s economy and — of course — his generation. His runs up and down the keyboard were shorter than Tatum’s and sometimes full of bebop logic; a lot of the complex, dissonant chords he kept importing into the songs descended from 20th-century classical music, Debussy and after.

These were jittery miniatures with constant revisions. You often heard a new idea fully engaged before the last one was resolved. Sometimes the spray of wit, and the constant rising and falling of tempo, became wearisome. But not always.

His “’Round Midnight” was astonishing for how long it maintained its gorgeous, restful tempo, even when that tempo was only implied. And because it was the longest piece of the set, arriving a little more than halfway through, you got the point: This was the apex, the cresting time. Discursive as the performance was, it had an arc. Mr. Solal is a master at this game.

Martial Solal continues through Sunday at the Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village; (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com.

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  • 2 months later...

That French Telefunken is an unusual one. That's the album with Solal on the cover, right?

The original release of it was this one on German Telefunken

ALLSTARS61.jpg

It's an absorbing album. I like it!

More releases from that date:

-Telefunken EP 7": TFR 423 - The European All Stars 1961 (1962)

(Blue Monk and Hittin' The Blues, with Tete Montoliu at the piano)

-Telefunken EP 7": TFK 13.007 - Teté (sic) Montoliu European All Stars 1961

(Averty, C'est Moi; Am I Blue and That Ole Devil Called Love; Spanish Telefunken EP where, despite the title, Solal is at the piano, and not Tete)

A mint copy of the German Telefunken just went for $393.00 on ebay:

http://tinyurl.com/2x762s

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  • 1 month later...

I am just listening to "Martial Solal Improvise Pour France Musique" on JMS. This is absolutely miraculous music, solo piano jazz at its best!

Do you happen to have attended that weird (and ultimately pretty bad, I found) trio concert of Solal's with Johnny Griffin (most likely pretty drunk...) and the late NHOP at the Tonhalle some six or seven years ago?

Solal was dazzling now and then, but the whole concert was quite a mess, only NHOP I found to play on more or less steady a level, Griffin totally out of it, and Solal changing between too few moments of brilliance and some pretty lacklustre playing...

Where did you find the France Musique 2CD set? It seems by now it's not that easy to find, at least I never managed to get a "real" copy of it...

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I am just listening to "Martial Solal Improvise Pour France Musique" on JMS. This is absolutely miraculous music, solo piano jazz at its best!

Do you happen to have attended that weird (and ultimately pretty bad, I found) trio concert of Solal's with Johnny Griffin (most likely pretty drunk...) and the late NHOP at the Tonhalle some six or seven years ago?

Solal was dazzling now and then, but the whole concert was quite a mess, only NHOP I found to play on more or less steady a level, Griffin totally out of it, and Solal changing between too few moments of brilliance and some pretty lacklustre playing...

Where did you find the France Musique 2CD set? It seems by now it's not that easy to find, at least I never managed to get a "real" copy of it...

No, I did not attend this concert, seems that I did not miss that much.

I found the France Musique 2CD set on priceminister.com, a French site, kind of a marketplace similar to amazon. They currently have the set for €10,65. Service was fine: Quick delivery, cd in impeccable condition.

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I am just listening to "Martial Solal Improvise Pour France Musique" on JMS. This is absolutely miraculous music, solo piano jazz at its best!

Do you happen to have attended that weird (and ultimately pretty bad, I found) trio concert of Solal's with Johnny Griffin (most likely pretty drunk...) and the late NHOP at the Tonhalle some six or seven years ago?

Solal was dazzling now and then, but the whole concert was quite a mess, only NHOP I found to play on more or less steady a level, Griffin totally out of it, and Solal changing between too few moments of brilliance and some pretty lacklustre playing...

Where did you find the France Musique 2CD set? It seems by now it's not that easy to find, at least I never managed to get a "real" copy of it...

No, I did not attend this concert, seems that I did not miss that much.

I found the France Musique 2CD set on priceminister.com, a French site, kind of a marketplace similar to amazon. They currently have the set for €10,65. Service was fine: Quick delivery, cd in impeccable condition.

Thanks, I'll have to check that site out some day!

A wonderful recent album, I've seen it referenced in this thread before too:

51rk0vUv4CL._AA240_.jpg

Anyone heard this?

51ED3XV47EL._AA240_.jpg

There was a thread dedicated to this Douglas/Solal disc, I think, I'm sure you can find it by doing a search.

I don't have it, and as Douglas isn't one of my bigger heroes (it's sort of some I like a lot, some I just don't care about at all, and his own trumpet playing... well, he certainly is skilled and all, but he's too much of a thinker, probably).

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  • 9 months later...

On the other hand, Solal's latest album Longitude (CamJazz, 2008) is a very good one. In a trio album with the Moutin brothers, he deeply explores the possibilities of the piano trios.

51GRpRwLuuL._SS500_.jpg

As Dan Morgenstern points out in the liner notes "“There are few greater pleasures in a jazz lover's life than listening to the music of Martial Solal. At 80, Solal seems to find as much joy in the creation of his unique artistry and transmit just as much of a sense of discovery to the listener as ever in his long and brilliant career."

I couldn't agree more with Dan, as I own 40+ Solal discs and I have yet to find one that I don't consider, at least, as quite good. With my own parameters, of course...

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the album that made me look for more solal is wes montgomery live in hamburg 1965 (philology) which i found recently - solal is astonishing on this one (by my measures)...

another album i'd recommend is "portrait in black and white" his duo album with trumpeter eric le lann... a very enjoyable and accessible set of music...

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'Locomotion' is a library-type album with short tracks, time-locked rhythms and unadventorous playing, as I remember it. A curious item of interest to Solal collectors, but of limited musical value.

thanks!

It's definitely just a curiosity, but I still like it.

Also it's just over 20 minutes, I think... go for it if you find it in the bins for 3-5 euros, otherwise no need, I'd say.

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  • 4 months later...

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