claude delcloo

[Guest akanalog]

so this delcloo guy did A and R for BYG Actuel...

i have spoken to another board member about him who seems to really dislike delcloo's playing...

i read reviews of albums on this label on amg and generally delcloo is ripped in every one of the reviews (one reviewer mentioning he was part of a grade Z rhythm section)...

i don't care for his playing but it is almost too weak to really make an impression either way.

he doesn't seem to really hurt dates-just doesn't add anything at all and makes you wish someone else were playing drums.

i think he is especially OK on the shepp full moon ensemble live albums, though not great.

my question is-did he really make deals with the musicians like "you can cut an album for us but you need to let me play drums." i think i heard this and otherwise i don't really understand why he would get so many opportunities seeing as their were many great ex-pat US drummers in paris at the time.

like why would a guy like shepp choose to use delcloo (and his boy beb on bass i guess) over people like cyrille, blackwell, moye, murray, m. ali, etc who were there around this time?

it seems he got no drum work after the BYG paris thing ended...

it just seems really prick-ey to mar many albums by insiting you get to play on them and i can't believe delcloo would have done this.

any thoughts on this? brownie? clifford?

[brownie]

You sort of summed up my impressions of Delcloo. A forgettable drummer and figure from the French free jazz scene of the late '60s. He sort of disappeared after being involved with the Actuel sessions and has not been missed by the people who were in touch with him at the time.

There were better drummers around in France then.

Not a musician I would waste time on...

[Guest akanalog]

thanks for the info, brownie.

but i still don't see why he was used so much?

did the american players WANT to use him i guess is what i am asking or where they obliged to use him?

[clifford_thornton]

I've heard obligation on a certain percentage of recording dates, but it's hard to say. The Full Moon Ensemble was Delcloo's thing, and its initial incarnation with Arthur Jones, Jacques Coursil, Burton Greene and Beb sounded great. Delcloo's sense of space and colour is remarkable on those occasions. It's too bad the rest of his work pales in comparison (though Africanasia is pretty cool).

I'm wracking my brain trying to think of French free drummers active in Paris in 1969, and coming up with very little. Somehow I can't imagine Charles Saudrais or Daniel Humair, great as they are (even in a semi-out context), making a BYG date. So Delcloo might've been one of the few locals around then who could even halfway cut it.

PS - don't drag Beb down with Delcloo; he was around well before and well after the Actuel sessions, and made stellar contributions to a number of dates - Tusques, Portal, duos with Francois Mechali, etc.

[brownie]

Clifford, Jacques Thollot was around and free at the time of those Actuel sessions. Not as free was Aldo Romano but he was also around and a better drummer than Delcloo.

But Delcloo made a name for himself before those recording sessions when he started a magazine named Actuel around 1968. The original magazine's existence was short-lived. It was taken over for a while by Jean Karakos (one of the people involved with the Actuel record label).

Actuel became a successfull venture when it was bought by Jean-François Bizot who made a trendy magazine out of it.

Don't know the exact truth about Delcloo's involvement with the label but being close to Karakos probably made things easy enough for him to produce and contract some of the sessions.

Mention of Delcloo's name does not seem to leave many regrets with people who were involved with those sessions.

And I agree that Beb Guerin should not be dragged down with Delcloo. He was a great musician, a good friend. HE is being missed!