\u00a0If you ask me my opinion on the bass clarinet, I will tell you that there is never enough of it. You can immediately guess my bias in favour of an album where this beautiful big purring cat takes center stage! Add to the mix the phenomenal musicianship of Andr\u00e9 Moisan, first chair of the OSM for, oh, a very long time (at this point, we’re not talking about years, but almost generations! Lol. I take the liberty because I know Andr\u00e9 can handle it…), and I’m already certain it will be good even before starting the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A thing anticipated, a thing due: it is indeed very good. On the program, eight compositions by eight Quebec composers, each lasting approximately eight minutes. Coming from jazz (R\u00e9mi Bolduc, Yves L\u00e9veill\u00e9, Beth McKenna, Philippe C\u00f4t\u00e9, S\u00e9bastien Champagne, and John Roney) as well as contemporary classical (Simon Bertrand, Tim Brady), the composers and the composer are primarily known for their musical personalities that are open to blending the two scholarly genres present. The octophilia of the project is ideally complemented by the chosen instrumental format: an octet composed of a jazz trio (piano-double bass-drums), a classical string quartet, and a solo bass clarinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sound portrait is consequently set in a middle ground between the libertarian urbanity of jazz and the panoramic suggestiveness, sometimes even dreamlike or cinematic, of classical music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did you know that Andr\u00e9 Moisan saved the lives of a mother and her daughter from the rising tide by paddling 1.5 km in a kayak a few years ago? The general character of this Coeur de sauveteur<\/em> (Lifeguard’s Heart) by R\u00e9mi Bolduc reveals very little of the scenario that inspired it, except for a more troubled episode in the middle of the piece. It seems more like relaxed walking music, which in no way detracts from its interest, particularly in the very beautiful solo lines entrusted to the bass clarinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forum<\/em>, by Yves L\u00e9veill\u00e9e, evokes a space for discussion, even debates between different opinions, illustrated here by quite marked contrasts between episodes adorned with striking textures. An initial rhythmic motif on strings comes to life with the entry of the drums and clarinet, followed by a mysterious piano\/bass passage, before the return of the initial theme and its pedestrian pace. The composer continues to play with these materials, making them interact in turn, but in an increasingly intertwined manner, each borrowing snippets of ideas from the other, until reaching a peak of confusion that is fortunately quite polite. The final stretch is made up of a smiling and serene synthesis. It’s quite brilliant, without ever letting the apparent dryness of the intellectual construction tarnish the aesthetic pleasure of the music that unfolds under its impulse. This is great Yves L\u00e9veill\u00e9e stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill’s Heaven<\/em> by Simon Bertrand is a rather clever and relevant play on words on the name of one of the great jazz musicians of all time : Bill Evans. The genius pianist and composer, who fused jazz with impressionism and classical romanticism, had a career that was both meteoric and tortured. Personal tragedies and addictions coexisted with an exceptional talent for clever and inspiring arrangements, deeply memorable. Simon Bertrand pays him a very beautiful tribute, in a sustained framework that is not lacking in complexity (a beautiful fusion between jazz and “accessible” contemporary), but which concludes in calm and unity, Bill’s paradise, perhaps finally reached by the musician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n