Rebellion(s)
They rebelled against a de jure or de facto authority.
They gave speeches that invite us to change the world, to oppose what oppresses or threatens us.
They push us to rebel.
Olympe de Gouges, Paul Robeson, Jean Moulin, Emma Gonzales and Greta Thunberg are among those whose acts and words carry this new project, this new step in the collaboration of saxophonists Sylvain Rifflet and Jon Irabagon.
Here, speeches are at the center of the music that accompanies them and transforms them at once into compositions and improvisation spaces.
Transcribed in notes each speech receives a singular treatment : Olympe de Gouges read by Jeanne Added is a slow ballad where the voice of the singer is harmonized by the saxophonists, André Malraux paying tribute to Jean Moulin (the great french resistant), opening spaces of improvisation between various passages of the famous text of 1964, Paul Robeson and Emma Gonzales in central theme of chiselled compositions or Greta Thunberg in a disarticulated pop march...
Each of these pieces questions in music what binds us, which unites us in the struggle to defend our rights.
Because if in France, and in Europe more generally most of the music written in the periods of revolt are songs, songs of protest or hymns, in the United States the musicians of jazz always composed around and for the defense of civil rights.
We can of course quote here John Coltrane’s “Alabama”, but also the music of Archie Shepp (who draws another bridge between our two continents) Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Phaorah Sanders and many others...
It is in the idea that this link between revolt and music is not dead that is composed the music of the quartet, merging influences of jazz, free jazz, repetitive and minimalist music.
After Perpetual Motion, Rebellion(s) is the second part of the collaboration between Sylvain Rifflet and Jon Irabagon, in an epured formula : two saxophones that support, shake up and carry a high-flying rhythm in the person of Jim Black and Sébastien Boisseau.
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