Rabshakeh Posted August 25, 2020 Report Share Posted August 25, 2020 On 22/08/2020 at 0:56 PM, mjazzg said: Similarly for me really. I've been a big Sclavis and Texier fan for many years but never really looked backwards. Now Tusques, Portal, Jouk Minor have been investigated largely due to posts here. Alongside which i very much enjoy a lot of the Souffle Continu label's reissues I've been going through those Souffles over the last couple of days. There's some great stuff in there. There appears to be almost no connection between the musicians that play on those records and what I (probably ignorantly) think of as the more "well known" French players like Tusques, Vitet, Portal or Guerin. There is also a total lack of the usual expat Americans. Does anyone know the reason for this split in the 70s French scene? Did they not get on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted August 25, 2020 Report Share Posted August 25, 2020 (edited) On 8/22/2020 at 4:50 AM, mjazzg said: More Tusques from Finders Keepers on its way imminently https://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/shop/francois-tusques-la-chasse-au-snark-the-hunting-of-the-snark/ oooohhhhh! -- which split are you talking about, by the way? As with scenes in New York, though players might have shared concert bills and known one another, not everybody played together. the Mechali brothers played with almost everybody, as did Siegfried Kessler, Patricio and Manuel Villaroel, Jef Sicard, Michel Gladieux, and Jean-My Truong, etc.. It was a fertile time with a lot of musicians testing the waters. Portal, Vitet, Guerin, and Tusques were a bit older, and I think part of a more established "professional" crew -- Portal was versatile in the Western classical field as well, while Vitet and Tusques came up in the post-bop environment. Tusques was also deeply politically involved with the left, so that might've been part of it too. Thollot was young but also came up among the straight ahead scene as a teenager. Edited August 25, 2020 by clifford_thornton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabshakeh Posted August 25, 2020 Report Share Posted August 25, 2020 (edited) 39 minutes ago, clifford_thornton said: which split are you talking about, by the way? As with scenes in New York, though players might have shared concert bills and known one another, not everybody played together. Players like Maurice Merle, Louis Sclavis, Christian Rollett and Jean Bolcato don't seem to be on any releases with the crowd mentioned in the third paragraph (Portal, etc.). It just seemed odd to me, as the French scene can't have been that big in the 70s, and the rest of them are fairly open to recording with different line ups. I wondered whether there was some sort of animosity or split there. You get similar splits into cliques in Germany and England, I guess, but even there most musicians have played with each other at least once, and there are generally musicians who fall between the camps. Edited August 25, 2020 by Rabshakeh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 I've seen Sclavis play with Tusques in person, so it happens. There are a lot of French musicians of many different stripes, so it certainly gets cliquish -- I mean, hanging out with French people will certainly prove that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Д.Д. Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 This is a strange proposition. Is everybody supposed to be playing with everybody? And if musicians don't this absolutely has to do with them belonging to warring cliques? For one thing, there is geography - Bolcato lived (still lives?) in Lyon (440 km from Paris) for example. Sclavis and Portal definitely worked with each other, there are releases with them both, moreover there were live gigs, one of which I saw in Paris in 1999 or 2000. Not every live gig is recorded and released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabshakeh Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 28 minutes ago, Д.Д. said: This is a strange proposition. Is everybody supposed to be playing with everybody? And if musicians don't this absolutely has to do with them belonging to warring cliques? I certainly did not mean to suggest that. I was just surprised that I had never come across those musicians, and wondering if there was a reason for it, other than my own ignorance of the scene. I wasn't aware that Sclavis had played with Portal or with Tusques. If they were based down in Lyons that would certainly explain it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Д.Д. Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 4 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said: I certainly did not mean to suggest that. I was just surprised that I had never come across those musicians, and wondering if there was a reason for it, other than my own ignorance of the scene. I wasn't aware that Sclavis had played with Portal or with Tusques. If they were based down in Lyons that would certainly explain it. I just checked - Sclavis is actually from Lyon as well and he did work with Portal in 1970s: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sclavis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabshakeh Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 And with Texier too. Looks like the answer was just my ignorance of the scene then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 On 8/22/2020 at 4:50 AM, mjazzg said: More Tusques from Finders Keepers on its way imminently https://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/shop/francois-tusques-la-chasse-au-snark-the-hunting-of-the-snark/ This looks pretty interesting, though the wordless vocals are definitely a turnoff for me. I'm listening to the preview track now on Bandcamp, and I'm not really sure I will order it after all. This is really not something I would listen to more than once or twice. Somewhat curious that Tusques can't actually confirm whether Barney Wilen is on the tapes or not... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted August 26, 2020 Report Share Posted August 26, 2020 6 hours ago, Rabshakeh said: And with Texier too. Looks like the answer was just my ignorance of the scene then. no worries; I think that it's a pretty big scene. And I think with any musical environment, there are both tendencies and reasons that preclude people from collaborating, whether socially, politically, aesthetically, or logistically. The Workshop de Lyon/Free Jazz Workshop is or was a pretty interesting group. I have several of their LPs (still missing the Une-deux-trois title, unfortunately). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OliverM Posted August 31, 2020 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 On 26/08/2020 at 10:46 AM, Rabshakeh said: I certainly did not mean to suggest that. I was just surprised that I had never come across those musicians, and wondering if there was a reason for it, other than my own ignorance of the scene. I wasn't aware that Sclavis had played with Portal or with Tusques. If they were based down in Lyons that would certainly explain it. Come to Paris in November and you can check that relationship live! (coronavirus permits): https://www.letriton.com/programmation/collignon-portal-sclavis-2518 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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