Interviews – Page 4

Back at the Lanaudière Festival for a first time since 2019, the illustrious violinist Christian Tetzlaff takes on one of the summits of solo violin literature: the JS Bach complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001–1006. We must acknowledge that

this performance offered by this fantastic German violinist will be a physical and intellectual challenge that just a few concert soloists accept. So we’re looking forward to attending this rendez-vous with Bach and Christian Tetzlaff in the intimacy of one of Lanaudière’s most beautiful churches, at the lovely village of Saint-Alphonse-de-Rodriguez. Just a few minutes before his flight to Quebec, Alain Brunet could reach the renowned violinist and have a chat about playing Bach.

PAN M 360: Christian Tetzlaff, you are going to perform in a church located at Saint-Alphonse-de-Rodriguez in the Lanaudière county. You will play what you recorded in 2017, the JS Bach complete sonata and partitas for violon. Of cours, you played those pieces many times before and after this Virgin recording

Christian Tetzlaff: Yeah. I played those pieces over more than 40 years and I played them as a complete cycle for 20 years. It’s the most beautiful and rewarding thing because Bach gets a continuous story in the six pieces, a journey into deep darkness in the D minor Partita in Chaconne and then some kind of feeling of resurrection in the C major and E major and to follow that whole thought that is like a gigantic Bruckner symphony and it goes through all kinds of emotions and physical feelings a human being can have. So, it’s totally fulfilling. Yeah, well, when you play the complete Sonata and Partita works from Bach, as you say, it’s a long journey.

PAN M 360: It’s probably an ongoing process as an interpreter of JS Bach, during your own life.

Christian Tetzlaff: Yes, it is a steady companion, I have to say.

PAN M 360: And how do you see the evolution of your playing through those pieces?

Christian Tetzlaff: Well, like most things, I think the older you get, the simpler and the more direct you get if you allow yourself to be emotionally free. So, I think what I play now is more direct, easier to follow for the audience and more outwardly emotional about knowing what the composer is talking about and trying to find sounds that really convey it nicely. And everything, yeah, naive and easy and the dancey bits more dancey and the dark bits darker. That’s my feeling towards how it has developed over the decades.

PAN M 360: How can we pinpoint the elements of the personality of the violinist when he plays those immortal pieces? In your case, do you pinpoint some elements of your personality sometimes?

Christian Tetzlaff: I hope as little as possible. I hope the idea of the interpreter is to immerse himself into Bach and his music and let it go through him to the audience. And the more you hear, oh, he’s doing this, he’s doing there, and he’s using vibrato here and not there, the less good it is. I should be as much a listener as the audience is. That’s my ideal.

PAN M 360: The concept of interpreting those Partitas and Sonatas has changed also through the years.

Christian Tetzlaff: And certainly not this idea that one’s doing something that speaks out or that is different from other people. Nowadays we are in a time where we have these decades of gathering knowledge about how it was performed and what it meant at that time and how the Baroque era feels somehow. We have these things all inside of the system – because when I started playing these pieces, one couldn’t listen to them properly because it was all about violin playing and majestic chords and impeccable playing.

And nowadays it’s about making music, dancing and singing. So this is a beautiful process which I have actually lived through in my own lifespan from starting in the 70s playing them. And it’s good to see we are in the best time where we can be free with these pieces, but on the basis of their musicality.

If you listen to the Bach Cantatas, you see for every text, for every Cantata, he uses completely different instruments, completely different composing styles, and this freedom in expression to be always excessive and to the point of saying something that is something that we can transfer nowadays into the violin.

PAN M 360: So through the times since the Baroque period when Bach composed those Partitas and Sonatas for violin, how can we see the evolution of the interpretation of those pieces through the periods, through the epochs?

Christian Tetzlaff: I mean, it’s quite atrocious to see what has been done, because violin playing has been so much about the superstar and about the technical ability and the biggest sound and the broadest data, that when you listen to the first recordings that we have, or maybe not the first days, there’s something good, but from the 50s and 60s and 70s, the music behind it is unrecognizable for me, because it is about mastering weird bowing techniques, playing those chords, those four chords divided in two and two. I mean, there was such a distance to what this music is talking about, and that music can be also wild and can also be at times not beautiful, but deep and dark or overjoyed, that the idea of mastering the violin is completely in the way of this. So when they have been performed in the 50s, 60s, 70s, all I know from hearing is very difficult, because everything is so complicated, and so trying to find some violinistic solutions for something that is actually, you have to see what is the context, what is the dance at that time.

PAN M 360: So if I understand, through the years and the decades, the people that are mastering those pieces went closer to the original way to interpret it. This is what you mean?

Christian Tetzlaff: Yes, but original is a difficult word, because we don’t know exactly how this music was played it, but we know a lot of things that did not exist, and many think that are so, in retrospect, so funny and not very smart to deal with it, making it very difficult, those fugues, whereas it’s so easy, because he had to write them in a certain way, but the notation is just the most easy one, and one always plays the melody line a bit longer, but what violinists always tried is to play all the chord full or break them in two and two, which in a piece that always talks about four independent voices, makes it unintelligible.

You cannot understand the simplicity of the beauty of the writing when violinistic you do such complicated thing, and then with constant vibrato, so then you don’t have the ability anymore to say this note I want to highlight and put a beautiful vibrato on it, and the kind of goings that were just measured. There was a time where it was seen as mathematical music and as square… and there is no music that is more alive and human and talking and especially playing by yourself. It allows such freedom to explain the pieces and to make them easy to follow, and this all didn’t exist when people started picking them up in the 20th century. So we live in glorious times for this.

PAN M 36: And by the way we finally may not expect a recreation of what we think it was.

Christian Tetzlaff: Well, that I don’t know, because for instance I play on a modern violin, so the sound it does not match, but what he wants to express, what he wants to express, I think, is informed by how it was played and how his cantatas were played, and he’s not all of a sudden a different composer who forgets about everything when he writes for the solo violin. It’s the same music, the same expressive big music, and we now find ways of making it alive in a different way. Yeah, do you sometimes play it on a baroque instrument? I did a bit, but I find the fascinating thing is with Bach that you can hear a fugue for the piano played by a saxophone quartet, and it sounds totally wonderful if they phrase and understand the music, and it is very touching.

He is slightly beyond the instrumentarium, but it still means you have to have the information how it was played so that you get most out of it.

PAN M 360: Also it must be a great challenge physically, I suppose, to play all those pieces in the same program.

Christian Tetzlaff: Yeah, it is. But that also has two sides. Usually I come into some kind of trance if I play a while and in communication with the audience, and then all of a sudden these pains or these challenges, they go less in a beautiful way.

PAN M 360: A sort of communion adrenaline that makes the pain disappear.

Christian Tetzlaff: Yes!

Originally a gastronomic happening, since 2015 this annual 4-day festival has featured a full musical program, spread over two outdoor stages on the Quai de l’Horloge in the Old Port. From Thursday, July 10 to Sunday, July 13, the Un Goût des Caraïbes festival brings together artisans and artists from the Caribbean diaspora, i.e. from all the islands and all its linguistic groups (Anglo, Franco, Latino) transplanted to the greater Montreal area. The emphasis is on Caribbean culture as a whole, but with a strong musical component made up essentially of local artists, very often in DJ format, accompanied by a few musicians or singers when the occasion lends itself. The focus is on inclusion and intergenerational links, attracting residents of the city’s Caribbean communities as well as (if not more than) all MTL residents, not to mention tourists strolling through the Old Port. That’s why PAN M 360 brings you this video conversation between Alain Brunet and Cezar Brumeanu, artistic director and executive producer of the festival Un goût des Caraïbes.

To access the program, click here!

This interview is dedicated to the programming of the Un Goût des Caraïbes festival, and is also part of a PAN M 360 content partnership with La Vitrine, the largest website devoted daily to cultural outings across Quebec.

To access the Un Goût des Caraïbes festival listing on the La Vitrine website, click here!

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KillaBeatMaker began his musical career some 2 decades ago, earning a Grammy Award nomination. Born, raised and based in Medellin, Columbia, he combines his DJ/producer tools with percussions and traditional flutes, he also sings and beatboxes while keeping an editorial interest on protecting Columbia’s biodiversity under threat. As a DJ/producer, KillaBeatMaker fuses cumbia, champeta, afro-house, afrobeats, amapiano and other african rhythms réinjected in Columbian music. Just before his first show at Montreal’s Nuits d’Afrique (Le Ministère, July 9th), he had a chat with Alain Brunet for PAN M 360.

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From July 8 to 20, 2025, Montreal welcomes the 39th Nuits d’Afrique, featuring more than 700 artists from some 30 countries around the world where Africans and their Afro-descendants from the Caribbean, Latin America and all immigrant lands live. Here come 13 days of indoor concerts and six 6 days of free outdoor programming in the Quartier des spectacles. Brazil’s Flavia Coehlo, Nigeria’s Femi Kuti, Ivory Coast’s Meiway, Algeria’s Labess and Martinique’s Blaiz Fayah are among the headliners of this not-to-be-missed event in Montreal culture. For PAN M 360, Alain Brunet interviewed Sépopo Galley, programmer at Nuits d’Afrique, who traveled the world to bring us the nuggets of this 39th program.

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Singer Climène Zarkan, of Syrian-Lebanese origin, and guitarist Baptiste Ferrandis, whose roots are more European, began their musical relationship by forming a guitar-voice duo. They were inspired to reinterpret songs by Aleppine singer Sabri Mdallal (1918-2006). A group was formed, albums were recorded and concerts were given. SARĀB explores a universe where, by turns, contemporary electric jazz, traditional or popular music from the Levant and quasi-metal rock intertwine, as witnessed by the albums Sarāb (2019), Arwāh Hurra – Âmes libres (2021), Awalebese Tape (2023) and a brand new recording scheduled for this year.

For the first time in Montreal, SARĀB brings us their Arab-Caucasian jazz-rock, which is undoubtedly transcultural. In the context of Nuits d’Afrique 2025, Alain Brunet wanted to find out more about SARĀB ahead of the concert scheduled for Tuesday, July 8 at Le Ministère.

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Vocalist and tenor sax player, Camille Thurman performed on the Molson Pub Stage with her husband Darrell Green on drums and excellent sidemen.

This was “classic” jazz.

Versions of great jazz, McCoy Tyner Atlantis for example, to Burt Bacharach’s classic pop Close to You, Camille Turman showed her fabulous skills on the tenor, powerful and warm sound, deep harmonic knowledge, excellent articulation. And her voice! Magnificent contralto, with a great taste, lushy and elegant phrases. Obviously, Jazz gods are on her side.

And this is why, any jazz aficionado attending PAN M 360 must know Camille Thurman, who became a Montreal hidden treasure.

Not for long !

Saxophone virtuoso and sublime vocalist, this gifted artist from NYC is deeply rooted in the jazz tradition and becoming one of the leading creators and performers of the art form. Now assistant professor in Jazz Performance at the McGill University Schulich School of Music, she pursues a double career of performer and educator.

Montreal is blessed to count on an artist of this level, just look at her prices and honors: among others, NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Jazz Album, recipient of the SOUTH Arts Creative Jazz Road Artistic Residency, Downbeat Magazine’s Critics Poll Nominee for Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist and Vocalist and Rising New Artist (2023, 2022, 2021 & 2020), two-time winner of the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Award.

Camille Thurman was the first woman in 30 years to tour, record, and perform full-time internationally with the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as a saxophonist/woodwind doubler (2018-2020 season).

PAN M 360: Camille, you’re now living in Montreal because you’re teaching at McGill University. However for music lovers it’s probably more important that you are a great soloist on tenor saxophone and also a great vocalist. Your talent led you among the best, for example the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra, with Wynton. I won’t name-drop allo your achievements. But Montreal must know you live here and you perform as leader on the last day of the Montreal Jazz Fest. So what and how did you move to Montreal?

Camille Thurman: Well, during the pandemic, I just left the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and I decided to go back into performing full-time with my project, Camille Thurman and the Darrell Green Quartet, because I’d put that on hold for two years. And we were performing and touring, and I got an opportunity to apply for a professorship up here.

Then I was teaching at the University of Northern Colorado, and my best friend encouraged me. She said, you know, you should apply for this position. And I was like, I don’t know, I mean, I’m working here in New York, and we’re touring. So close to New York. And she was like, well, just give it a try, if it works, it works, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

And at the time, my husband, Darrell Green, was applying for a professorship in Vienna. So we both were kind of at a crossroads, where if he got the Vienna professorship, I’d go with him. And if I got Montreal, we’ll see what happens. And sure enough, everything worked out. I did the interview.

Then they said, okay, can you come back for another interview? And I said, okay. And then we did a live class session, and I think it was like a couple of weeks later, they said, hey, we would love to have you, and we would love to have your husband, too.

PAN M 360: That’s the perfect deal !

Camille Thurman: Yeah. I mean, we both were shocked, because it’s not often that you have two world touring musicians finding those jobs. And very close to your hometown. Yeah, close to home, we come to teach at a world-class university in Canada, and most importantly, share what we love and do professionally. Yeah. I mean, and of course, the faculty there was incredible, too, so we thought, okay, let’s take a chance. And we still ended up saying, okay, well, we’re going to live in Montreal part-time, we’re going to live in New York part-time, because our business is still based in New York. And that’s what we’ve been doing: touring, performing, teaching.

PAN M 360: And because the connection between Montreal and New York is strong, it is an ideal situation ! You know that a lot of Montrealers go more often to NYC than Toronto, especially for the music in our case.

Camille Thurman: Oh, yeah, the Montreal students told us. Every time we would go for the Winter Jazz Fest, students would tell us, hey, we’re going to take a car, seven of us are sharing a hotel room, we’re going to see y’all.

PAN M 360: And if you look at the architecture of Montreal, it often looks like Brooklyn and Queens, for example.

Camille Thurman: Yeah, it’s so true.

PAN M 360: Both are East Coast cities of the Industrial Revolution. Boston, Montreal, and New York are very connected, historically. Yeah, and the history, too. Yeah, well, the Mont-Royal Park has designed by Holmsted, who did the Central Park and Prospect Park in NYC.

Camille Thurman: That’s right. Yeah. And then jazz history, too.

I mean, Oscar Peterson.

PAN M 360: Yeah OP without a doubt ! So you’re involved, also, with your husband, you are both band leaders, artists in the same business ! It’s also a perfect match for professional life and private life, because you can travel together, you teach together in the same school, so how can you expect better ?!

Camille Thurman: Yeah, we create together. I’m extremely blessed to have met and get to work with Darrel Green. He’s a phenomenal drummer. Yeah, and of course, an incredible educator. It’s just been such a great blessing working with him and collaborating on our projects together.

We both have our own background, but bringing that together, it’s just been such a treat to be able to tour and perform the music that we compose and write together, and then double teach the students, and they watch it. We can be touring over the weekend somewhere, and then get to class 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and be like, okay, class, let’s talk about some chord changes today, and the kids are like, okay, so we saw you on Instagram, y’all are in such and such, how is that gig ? But let’s talk about that, and you’re like, no, no, no, let’s deal with the lesson.

PAN M 360: Well, you can do both, but it’s always very attractive for students to have a persona like yours to be a sort of role model at the same time, so they’re obviously interested in your performances. And I suppose they transcribe your solos haha!

Camille Thurman: It’s such a joy, I mean, we talk about the students all the time whenever we finish courses, and we’re always thinking, okay, well, what if we did this, or what if we did that? So it’s beautiful to see that there is a connection between us. They’re watching us, and we’re trying to make sure we’re giving them the best that we can give them when we’re with them.

PAN M 360 : What is your perception of Montreal after a few months living here?

Camille Thurman: When I first got here, it reminded me of being in Europe but with a North America vibe. So, you don’t have to fly six hours. It’s right here. And the people have been wonderful. The students that we’ve been working with at McGill have been fantastic to work with. And then it’s just that the scene is just vibrant. Wonderful professors too – John Hollenbeck, Joe Sullivan, Kevin Dean, Jean-Michel Pilc, Ranee Lee…

PAN M 360: Cool, cool. Now, let’s talk about the music that you’re performing this summer. Can you describe the band and the repertoire you’re performing?

Camille Thurman: Sure. Well, we just are now wrapping up a tour that we’ve been on for the last week and a half. We started off in New York City at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, we ended up in Wisconsin, and then we ended up in Chicago, and then we just finished in Cincinnati, and Montreal is the last stop. Yeah, it’s been a great week and a half of just playing and meeting people. The band, I am proud to say, is one of the fiercest cats, well, they’re all fierce musicians. You have Paul Beaudry on the bass. He’s phenomenal as a bassist, and he’s a band leader in his own right. We also have a young up-and-coming pianist who’s talented from Philadelphia by the name of Jordan Williams. We also have a wonderful young lion on trumpet, Wallace Roney Jr, son of Wallace Roney and Geri Allen. And then, of course, we have Darrel Green on the drums, and then yours truly on voice and saxophone.

PAN M 360 : And the repertoire you’re actually presenting ?

Camille Thurman: We just released an album called Confluence Vol.1 Alhambra. We’re going to play some of the pieces off of that project, as well as some other pieces from some different projects that we’ve been working on – we’ve been working on a project that features the music of Burt Bacharach that we kind of reimagined and rearranged in a whole new way, and so far the audiences have been liking it.

PAN M 360: About your voice, you grew up as an excellent student, and finally you found out you were also a singer.

Camille Thurman: It’s funny, because I had an interesting journey in discovering my voice, and in fact, I kept it a secret that I would sing. Because when I was much younger and I started playing the saxophone, I knew right away, being a young lady playing a tenor saxophone, people would just kind of look at you and like, oh, you don’t play that thing.

And after over and over dealing with that at 13 or 14, I was like, I’m never going to say that I’m a singer, because they always assume a singer. I’m just going to try to be the best that I could be on the saxophone. And it wasn’t until my 20s that my mentor, Antoine Roney, encouraged me to also sing professionally. And said, you know, some of the greatest musicians in the world were both singers and instrumentalists – Shirley Horne, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan… Then something just clicked.

I was like, what am I doing? I’m sitting on a beautiful gift that God blessed me. It’s two gifts. And Antoine really helped me as a mentor shape and mold the vision that I wanted as a vocalist and an instrumentalist.

And it opened up my mind. There’s things that vocally I think now I have a freer understanding of exploring because I play the saxophone and vice versa. There’s things as a saxophonist I have a freer understanding and exploring because of my knowledge as a vocalist.

PAN M 360: As a tenor player, did you have some role models ?

Camille Thurman: Oh, yeah. Antoine Roney. Antoine, yeah. George Coleman. He’s my heart. I love him. Yeah. And then, of course, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon.

PAN M 360: Yeah. The lineage. And you are into this tradition yourself.

Camille Thurman: Thank you. Yeah.

PAN M 360: You have a sort of, I wouldn’t say classical jazz approach, but you’re very, very close to tradition. You’re into this lineage. Your contribution at first glance is not so evident, but when we go deep, it’s like a classical musician now. Every great player has their own voice, but we have to listen very carefully to discover it :when it’s rooted in the jazz tradition.

Camille Thurman: Yeah. I believe that when people inspire you, there’s pieces of people that represent who you are as a whole artist. And for me, I grew up listening and inspired by so many artists. And again, because of playing and singing, it’s created this unique sound. Yeah.

PAN M 360: About your training. How much time do you spend on your voice and your saxophone playing?

Camille Thurman: I don’t calculate that. I mean, I think it’s just a matter of you always constantly thinking about the music. So it’s not a matter of, okay, I’m going to set aside 10 hours of practice. It’s whether you’re traveling or you’re walking, you’re always thinking and working it out.

PAN M 360: Do you try to reach a balance between your voice and tenor playing ?

Camille Thurman: I just see them as one entity. And the voice is an instrument in itself.

PAN M 360: It gives you a unique perspective in approaching sound, harmony, melody, phrasing, and I just think of it as one whole instrument.

Camille Thurman : That’s true.

PAN M 360: And the best way to approach a melodic instrument is to think about the voice.Camille Thurman: That’s right. It’s the foundation of all music. The voice is the first ever instrument and it still is.

Photo: Emmanuel Novak Bélanger

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The environment is an important issue for this collective from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who will be performing at the 39th Nuits d’Afrique Festival. In fact, they transform metal, wood and plastic objects to make their instruments, creating new sounds never heard before. Our journalist Michel Labrecque met them for PAN M 360, and was even treated to a surprise at the end of the interview.

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Lara Somogyi’s harp and Jean-Michel Blais’s piano conversed in the Californian desert, more precisely in Joshua Tree, where the musician lives with her husband Cyrus Reynolds. Jean-Michel had been invited as a friend and… once there, pianist and harpist improvised for a few hours together, and here we are, with over 35 million listens to this improvisation that became an album on the recommendation of Lara’s composition production partner and spouse. For Quebec music lovers, Jean-Michel Blais’ reputation is well established, but the biographical profile of his Francophile American colleague is less well known, as you can see in this interview with Alain Brunet. In addition to her work as a composer and performer, Lara is also a much sought-after studio harpist in the USA, both for the audio world and for film and television. Her credits speak for themselves, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Rufus Wainwright, Bonobo, Terence Blanchard and even Hans Zimmer. Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi’s album Desert was released at the end of the winter, and its live version will be presented for the very first time at the Gesù, this Saturday, July 5, as part of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.

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“She discovered early that the true essence of music is not just about what you hear, but how it makes you feel. Her mission is to keep the ‘Soul’ in music alive” says her bio profile. Alexis Lombre, 28, is an emerging soul/jazz artist from Chicago, more precisely from the South Side. She toured with Jon Batiste, Terrace Martin, Terri Lyne Carrington, Ledisi, Lizz Wright, STOUT, Keyon Harrold, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Marcus Miller, Nicole Mitchell, Jamila Woods, DJ D-Nice, and the Miles Davis Electric Band. She was awarded the inaugural 2022 New Music Next Jazz Legacy Award and the 2023 Luminarts Award.

And she was playing in Montreal on July 3rd at Pub Molson stage.

With her trio, she proposed a nice blend of soul/R&B/gospel jazzy original compositions and also references from the past, including a solid version of Duke Ellington’s Caravan. So ? The quest for new jazz artists at PAN M 360 led us to Alexis Lombre ! Here is our conversation.

PAN M 360: Thanks a lot Alexis for accepting this interview. One of the main programmers of this Montreal festival suggested that I discover your craft like a few weeks ago. Which I did !

Alexis Lombre: Thank you !

PAN M 360: And well, it’s the beginning of maybe a long relationship with Montreal.

Alexis Lombre: I hope so, yeah.

PAN M 360: You’re from Chicago, you play the piano and you sing. You also compose your own music and play with other bands like Marcus Miller.

Alexis Lombre: Yeah, I was even here with Marcus Miller in 2022 at the Montreal Jazz Fest.

PAN M 360: This time, you’re coming with your own band, your own compositions. So let’s talk about the evolution of your craft, your own identity as a keyboard player, composer, and also a singer-songwriter.

Alexis Lombre : Yeah, my favorite piano players are Gene Harris and Bobby Timmons.

PAN M 360: Oh!

Alexis Lombre: Funk guys, I mean, and of course, Oscar Peterson from Montreal. And of course, I love Herbie (Hancock) coming from Chicago.

So it’s funny because I feel like Herbie, my love for Herbie has followed me throughout my life in an interesting way. Like I loved Herbie because he had that kind of soul jazz energy. But then as he gets more into his more fusion type stuff with Headhunters. Earlier in my career, I loved the straight ahead Herbie Hancock. And then as I got older, and as his records progressed, I loved his more fusion records as well. And Herbie being a South Side Chicagoan as well, like I am.

PAN M 360: You’re from the South Side?

Alexis Lombre: Yes, sir.

PAN M 360: Chicago has such a beautiful new music scene. In Hip Hop you have Saba, for example.

Alexis Lombre: Yeah he’s great. You know I was just two grades younger than Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper. And I remember growing up and watching them, watching how they were writing music and putting music out and tuning.

PAN M 360: In Jazz you have Makaya McRaven or Marquis Hill or Junior Paul.

Alexis Lombre: Those are all my big brothers !

PAN M 360: So you play with them sometimes in Chicago, I suppose.

Alexis Lombre: Yeah, actually we’re all playing soon (in August) at We Out Here Fest in the UK. We’re doing a tribute to the late producer Charles Stepney.

PAN M 360: Do you still live in Chicago ?

Alexis Lombre: No I’m now based in Los Angeles. Yeah I just wanted to see something new, you know? I’m young and I don’t have no kids and I’m not married, so I can just kind of be anywhere.

PAN M 360: Let’s try to pinpoint some other influences of your craft, to be more precise.

Alexis Lombre: Sure ! Well, you know, I’m really inspired by many artists. I remember when Solange released A Seat at the Table. Don’t Touch My Hair was my song. I also love Erykah Badu. She really inspired me as a songwriter. And there is D’Angelo you know. And Thundercat. And nu soul, experimental stuff like Flying Lotus or Georgia Anne Muldrow. And Kendrick Lamar of course.

PAN M 360: What is the way you play and create ?

Alexis Lombre: I’m definitely someone who is a composer, an arranger, a producer. I produce all of my own stuff. Self-produced, independent. And, yeah, I think a lot of my music covers my spiritual journey, such as Come Find Me, was about, you know, finding the inner light. And finding God within me.

PAN M 360: Did you have a gospel background in your family?

Alexis Lombre: Funny enough, the first time I felt the Holy Spirit was in a jazz club.

PAN M 360: Really?

Alexis Lombre : So I didn’t grow up in church per se, but I’ve definitely had experiences where I felt the Holy Spirit in the jazz clubs on the south side of Chicago. So my experience is a little more unique. I’m probably one of the only Black musicians from the U.S. who didn’t, like, primarily grow up in church, but you still hear it in my sound. I liked to sleep on Sunday mornings, I just didn’t feel like it, you know? So, you know, it was just that simple. I’m just not a morning person, yeah. It’s just that simple.

PAN M 360: Well, it fits well with your profession.

Alexis Lombre: Yeah, exactly. I’m definitely a night owl and somebody who is very sensitive and, you know, very… I love writing songs. I’ve been songwriting since I was 10 years old. A lot of the songs that I’ve written on my first album, South Side Sounds, I wrote in high school !

Photo : Benoit Rousseau

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On Friday July 11, the Festival Nuits d’Afrique welcomes a South African rapper well established in his country: Stogie T, real name Tumi Molekane. This will be his second visit to Montreal, his first as a solo artist. Stogie T has no tongue in cheek, and has tons to say about his life, his career and South Africa, a country whose destiny remains complicated, despite the end of the racist Apartheid regime 31 years ago. It’s not every day you meet a rapper from this country. Our contributor Michel Labrecque spoke to him about all these different aspects. Fasten your seatbelts!

PANM360: Stogie T, tell us a little bit about yourself, you were born in Tanzania, grew up in South Africa and have been rapping for over twenty years!

Stogie T: You’ve said it all, I’ve got nothing more to add (laughs). I was born in Tanzania to South African parents in exile. I may have been conceived in Russia, when my parents were there for military training. But I have no family ties with Tanzania; I lived there until I was 12, when we returned home.

PANM360: So your parents were anti-Apartheid activists? Did that have an impact on you?

Stogie T: Exactly, my father was a pastor who became a soldier in the ANC (African National Congress, now the ruling party). But he died when I was a year old. But my mother was very involved in the struggle, right up to the end. There was always this idea of the “promised land” and that I had to find a goal. That’s been my framework right up to the present day. I just had to find my own way.

If I compare myself to a pair of glasses, this mission idea was the frame, hip hop my lens, and then finding my own voice meant getting rid of the glasses (laughs) and discovering my own vision.

PANM360: In South Africa, you lived in Soweto, the huge black neighborhood on the outskirts of Johannesburg. How did music and rap come into your life?

Stogie T: Mainly by walking the streets, playing basketball and talking to family members. When I listened to rap music as a kid, I wanted to go further. When a rapper mentioned Miles Davis, I wanted to hear it, when it talked about AK-47, I wanted to know more (laughs), but my musical range expanded, while remaining centered on rap.

And since I wasn’t good at sports or skateboarding, hip hop helped me climb the social ladder of testosterone-filled adolescence. Little by little, I freed myself from American rap influences to tell stories about my community and my country.

PANM360: In 2004, you formed a band called Tumi and the Volume, which became famous in South Africa and toured all over the world. It was an adventure that lasted almost a decade.

Stogie T: At the time, we represented what people were calling the “new South Africa”; a white guitarist from Mozambique, a white Jew, a black man rapping about Nelson Mandela (the first post-Apartheid black president), it was a breath of fresh air. Our international tours also allowed me to share the stage with greats like Salif Keita and Manu Dibango. It opens your ears and makes you admire the great African musicians.

On the other hand, there’s one hurdle we’ve had trouble getting over. Abroad, a South African band always has to carry a political message. For me, this became a cage. Because I’m South African, I can’t write a song about flowers or butterflies! Politics is important, but it’s not the only thing in life.

PANM360: In 2012 Tumi and the Volume disbanded, and in 2015 Stogie T’s debut album was released.

Stogie T: The split was amicable and we’re still friends. Afterwards, I discovered that I was suffering from “cyniscosis”, the disease of cynics, which I self-diagnosed (laughs). Because South Africa’s liberation project turned into a comic tragedy. Most of the politicians we admired when we were young turned out to be corrupt, made fools of themselves. We believed that the magic of Mandela would make this rainbow nation immune to imbecility. But in the end, we’re just as greedy and full of shit as humans are.

PANM360: So, Stogie T is back to political lyrics. Your latest EP, released recently, is called Lasours, which is a title in French: la source.

Stogie T: Yes, I made this album with a musician from Reunion Island, Aleksand Saya, who comes from this place called Lasours. He’s an incredible musician and producer who mixes maloya music, a style from the island, with electronica. I loved working with him.

PANM360: In addition to this latest offering, you’ve released four albums. How is Lasours different?

Stogie T: I’m talking about the violence in South Africa, one song is dedicated to a young rapper who was murdered, it’s also about Reunion Island, a French department not so far from South Africa. People shouldn’t forget their roots, even when they go to study in Paris. We also hear Ntsika, a great South African singer who is part of a famous acapella group.

PANM360: What will we hear at your July 11 concert at Balattou?

Stogie T: You’ll hear a mix of hip-hop, African music, jazz and soul. With a wonderful singer called Bonj, to whom, frankly, I’m more of an accompanist (laughs). I don’t think anyone is like us, for better or for worse (laughs).

My band and I are already in Montreal, there’s so much to do, I hope my band will still be up and running on the 11th.

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Belgian-Colombian group La Chiva Gantiva mixes traditional Colombian rhythms, rock, hip-hop and electro in an explosive cocktail. Born in Brussels, they have earned an international reputation for their incomparable stage energy and unique sound. Now on their fourth album, the band is part of the Festival Nuits d’Afrique line-up and will perform at Club Balattou on July 8, 2025, the festival’s opening day. Rafael Espinel spoke to PAN M 360 contributor Michel Labrecque.

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Thundercat is undoubtedly THE jazz bass star of the nujazz world, but this notoriety is also due to his associations with Kendrick Lamar and his jazz friends, including Kamasi Washington. Meanwhile, there are other superbassists of the same generation who make less of a media splash and play just as well. Such is the case of Derrick Hodge, African-American bass virtuoso invited to Studio TD on July 1. Many knew him alongside Robert Glasper in the zero-ties, and jazz and groove aficionados have not lost track of him. Playing as a power trio (bass, drums and keyboards), Derrick Hodge delivered a solid performance to the free concert audience, inspired by an important album released on the Blue Note label: Color of Noize, the subject of this conversation with this excellent musician.

PAN M 360 : So let’s talk about the recent work. How is it going? How was the production aspect, the composition aspect, and how is it translated on stage now?

Derrick Hodge: Yeah, glad you asked. Color of Noize, man, it started as an idea. It started as, you know, pre-COVID and through COVID, there was a lot of just discussion. I thought people had just free time.

PAN M 360: Yeah. Everybody composed a lot at that time.

Derrick Hodge: Yeah, yeah, and I read and see a lot of descriptions of myself and kind of how I’ve been prescribed and defined, and I just noticed the diversity of that. Yeah, there’s a diversity of that and what people are saying and how rare I actually take time to actually think about that myself and how little I even really, even after seeing that, how much I cared about that. It was just like, no, I’m just being myself. So in that, it started with taking some of those words and realizing, man, maybe that’s an emotion in itself. And that’s what Color of Noize is about.

It was like seeing some people might say something kindly about me that they also may have said things negative about others and not even knowing, I respected that sound that they’re speaking of. I’m actually a product of all of these things. I’m a melting pot. And I really try to allow that

PAN M 360: It’s also a reflexion about noise as a concept.

Derrick Hodge: Yes. What is noise? You know, what is colour? What is beautiful? What is harmonic? Our perception is always changing.

PAN M 360: So Color of Noise is accepting the sound where it happens, and being here and now, right in the moment.

Derrick Hodge: That’s what this is all about.

PAN M 360: What you did achieve, we know, we can comment on, and we can have different versions, as you say, different perceptions, different emotions reacting to your craft, to your work, and some performance you’ve presented in front of us.

Derrick Hodge: And that’s a beautiful thing because it’s a very human thing. It’s a real thing that, you know, so acceptance, it was about acceptance, accepting that and finding the beauty in it. And that, what the opportunity was right in front of me was my upcoming Blue Note record with Don Was – also president of Blue Note Records. I wanted him to produce it with me. I wanted it to be about Color of Noize and really document that experience.

PAN M 360: The process of this album, released in 2020, was singular, wasn’t it ?

Derrick Hodge: People don’t realize they’re listening to first takes through the whole record. We recorded that entire album in about 18 hours. And it was more so about me explaining that idea, I would play the themes that I’d worked on, and then let’s see where we land with the sheet music and every musician on that record. The album features Jahari Stampley and Michael Aaberg on keys, Mike Mitchell and Justin Tyson on drums, and DJ Jahi Sundance on turntables. I played myself bass, keys, guitar and vocals. They all took that and really owned it in a way where I couldn’t have controlled it if I did it myself. It was just like, no, it’s gotta be this. It was about letting go.

PAN M 360: Yeah you let them play. And that’s what’s led to the expansion of Color of Noize.

Derrick Hodge: Yeah, and I’m thinking about other projects, and that idea of Color of Noise, self-love, acceptance, that was on the mind even back then when I was working on that years ago. So to see it now full circle, the idea of self-love coming through by musicians, if I don’t meet a single symphonic player, they’re honouring the music in that way, because I’ve tried to take care as if each moment meant something.

PAN M 360: Can we pinpoint some colours that are more prominent, I would say? Not trying to describe the whole thing, but some sources of inspiration.

Derrick Hodge: So I’ll say that that is truly the thing. Color of Noise is truly about whatever you take from it when you hear it, I’m totally fine with how that’s defined. The people who are playing it, for example, like I said, when we recorded that, they had no preconception. We just made sure everything was set up. The drummer who arrived didn’t even know.

PAN M 360: They didn’t know they were going to be playing two drum sets.

Derrick Hodge: They didn’t know. So it was about true acceptance.

PAN M 360: You did the setup, and they jumped in.

Derrick Hodge: They jumped in. And what people are hearing is truly them taking it and embracing it. But it’s an artistic direction in the same time.

PAN M 360: Yeah you let them free, but you have prepared the sessions.

Derrick Hodge: So the guidance is showing them the genesis of, this was the period of what that idea is. I would let them hear, oh, this idea, this was the theme I worked on at my PM. I would let them hear that, not even hearing how I’d like the final result to be with them.

I just let them hear that, and they had the sheet music. And where we landed was truly how they embraced that within their lens. They were actually reacting to each other.

And as the pieces went, as we ended them, just calling out endings as we got there. But that’s been the beauty of it, and that’s what’s allowed the Color of Noise sound. The moment someone thinks they can define it fully, they might be able to define the record version, but that’s totally different than the orchestras that’re touring the country right now.

That’s totally different from the string quartet that I’m doing.

PAN M 360: Yeah, you can have different versions of the same compositions in different sizes, different instrumentation, different orchestrations.

Kendrick Hodge: Right, right, right. But the same root. Kind of. I mean, so when you see the performance, the start of Color of Noise was certain music, but it really does vary.

So the root might be my composition, or it might be even using an orchestra, but completely other sounds, other things, other compositions where I put on my arrangement hat and go within that framework. It’s really about saying, okay, you know what? Really, if we throw these same people into different situations with me, let’s see where we land.

PAN M 360: Let’s present the setup of this actual tour.

Kendrick Hodge: Yeah, tonight’s going to be, it’s fun, it’s the trio. Mason Guidry, who is one of my favorite musicians, a drummer, incredible, I’ve known him his whole life. His dad put me on my first recording session, I believe at 13, 14 years old. It’s come full circle now that his son and I are playing together. He’s just an orchestra all in himself. And Bigyuki (Masayuki Hirano), who is one of my favorite musicians, creative, just a free thinker, creative. I don’t even want to say he’s a keyboard player, he’s a sonic orchestra. So between the three of us, we start that dance. I react to the energy of the audience. It could be from the first clap. If it’s something different, I see.

PAN M 360: You can shift.

Derrick Hodge: Yeah, totally shift. And that might be from the very first song. So it’s very Color of Noise focused where I give them a journey into my process of making that record and how they respond. That’s what the band situation is. I throw themes and then do variations of it.

PAN M 360: Excellent ! So it’s a power trio version this time.

Derrick Hodge: Absolutely. Yeah, and every time it’s different innately because they’re reacting based on how their day went.

PAN M 360: Do you have some favorite achievements during that cycle? In what kind of version or performance?

Derrick Hodge: You know, I haven’t gotten to that point yet. Well, it’s not important. Where there’s a favourite yet. I’ve really loved it because certain parts of it just remind me of kind of a sweet element of it all. Like, oh yeah, that was a moment. How I cracked that together for that record in succession to it. So I haven’t separated it to a point where certain parts of the show are a favourite. I’m loving it all, man!

Photo: Emmanuel Novak-Bélanger

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