Madness Tenors – Be Jazz for Jazz
“It is sometimes said that George Garzone would be the best kept secret of the contemporary tenor saxophone. Although it happens regularly in France, and if this would not be detrimental to him, I would be tempted to join this designation to Lionel Martin. Both remain original and powerful. Perfectly accompanied, this record in common proves to be an extraordinary ball of energy. Warmly recommended! ”
Jazz Mag – Ludovic Florin – February 2017
Louis Sclavis Sextet – Ellington on the air
“Oh wonder, Thursday, October 20, Ouch! Records re-enchants our decks with this little gem made in France in 1992.
Django d’or 1993 in the category “Best French jazz record of the year”, the album Ellington on the air of Louis Sclavis Sextet, published on the IDA label Philippe Vincent, sees again the day. These goldsmiths of scores around the world of Duke, made and served by peerless instrumentalists, were recorded at Gimmick Studio, in Yerres in 1991. Remastered brilliantly, recording vinyl released in 500 copies, on the new label promising Ouch! Records. A digital version will also be offered by Cristal Records.“
FIP – Catherine Carette – 19 octobre – 2016
“Twenty-five years later, this music remains topical and retains its modernity, is to say the potential innovation that this” Ellington on the air “could represent when it was created. As for the music of Duke Ellington, it exists against and against the years like a musical treasure and a source of inspiration which should not dry up before long. ”
Latins of Jazz – Nicole Videmann – October 30, 2016
Sate – Redblack & blue
“Attention, hot in front, the” miss “Sate arrives with her soul diva voice, with feathers in her hair. Sate has a voice to make the space around her tremble. Soul, blues and rock, her music is all on fire, both the riffs and the tension are in the red. This first album, which is a compilation of her three EPs, tells the story of three women. Not just for Sate, but for her mother (the singer Salomey Bey), her daughter and her sister. And as Sate is a poet, the three women are symbolized by three animals: the robin, the black panther and the blue morpho butterfly. What is astonishing from the first listening is all the wild energy there is in her voice and her music. It must be said that his mother has for 5 years, Alzheimer’s disease, which explains in part the rage, the desire to scream Sate. Because of the breath and the sound there are in this RedBlack & Blue. Her style is somewhere the encounter between Led Zeppelin’s heavy 70’s rock with the intensity of Jimi Hendrix as a bonus, the psyche and acid soul of Funkadelic and the voices of Marlena Shaw and Tina Turner Ike. With such an album filled to the brim of flayed blues, Sate should quickly be noticed with the general public”
www.foutraque.com – Paskal Larsen – 28/10/2016
“When you discover new artists, there are sometimes good surprises and favorites, Sate is one of them! When listening to the record, the first thing that strikes is the energy and the feeling that comes from it. “Warrior” sets the tone of the album, drums and guitar fuzz and a blues singer who wants to do battle, it sounds like a meeting between Black Sabbath and Tina Turner! “Live On Your Love” is a reminder of the Beatles’ “Come Together” with a catchy and funky refrain. On “Know My Name”, Sate sings as if her life depended on it and the tortured guitar reinforces the heaviness of the atmosphere. The ballad “The Answer” allows the singer to give all the fullness of her voice and the melody forces emotion. The album closes with “Peace”, it is a pure marvel, singing on the back of Hammond organ and which rises in power, the voice takes you to the guts to stop brutally. Hardly finished, we feel an immediate lack of that energy that carries the album and transcends it! “.
Nouvelle Vague – Laurent Therese – 8/10/2016
Jazz before Jazz
“It could only be intriguing. Or worse: anecdotal. And it’s just the opposite, Jazz Before Jazz proves to be unavoidable. “
Albert Laroux – Jazz News – Mars 2016
“Mario Stantchev is also a traveler, from Sofia to France, happily moving from classical piano to jazz, teacher, musician, he knows how to transmit, integrate and arrange. Lionel Martin presents the same musical and pedagogical qualities. Their proposal is a sort of uchronie, the hypothesis of a Louis Moreau Gottschalk as first jazz pianist. The arrangements of his plays, romanticism aside, showcase their creole identities (Southern States, Latin America, Caribbean Islands), but with the ear of those who listened to Coltrane, Monk or Coleman. Neolithic paintings, but with the bomb. This is what makes this music timeless and engaging. It is just as authentic, since it is just as mixed as the matrix. “
Citizen Jazz – Matthieu Jouan – 27/03/2016
“Mario Stantchev and Lionel Martin seem to play this music like others would enjoy a classified growth. We feel through their ample and dense interpretation – you will not find in the record any piece of bravery, and when either speaks, there is never talk of chatter – Have slowly settled, they taste flavors and perfumes, they explore it lovingly. They know how to seize a composition to reshape it with their vocabulary and grammar of exposed themes and moments of improvisation. “
Musiques Buissonières – Denis Desassis – 22/02/2016
“To the question of the added value of Mario Stantchev’s and Lionel Martin’s record, the answer is simple: Gottschalk’s music moves away from colonial archaism to clothe itself with tinsels today Appears incongruous. Like a soul supplement.”
Djam – Philippe Lesage – 09/02/2016
“The result is striking originality and freshness, sparing for the most jaded listener many cheerful surprises, drawing the contours of a musical continent that had been unjustly neglected. “
Classica – Jean-Pierre Jackson – Mars 2016
“This rereading of Gottschalk’s work strikes hard and is right. These twelve compositions are strikingly modern, at the crossroads of this great passer-by of emotions. We are witnessing the timeless effervescence of a music that was not yet jazz, which was already “jazz before jazz” as the title of this precious album perfectly indicates. “
Florent Mazzoleni
uKanDanZ – Yetchalal
“Damien Cluzel is a pioneer. Atypical guitarist, this Lyonnais who studied a bit of carnatic music in Amsterdam is one of the first Westerners to listen to this urban groove, often coppered, labeled ethio-jazz, before going to 1999 in Addis Ababa. Yetchallal stems from his encounter in the early 2000s in the Ethiopian capital with Asnakè Guèbrèyès, a well-known singer and drummer from the place. An album recorded in Lyon with three local musicians, Lionel Martin (tenor sax), Fred Escoffier (keyboards), Guilhem Meier (drums).
The quintet uKanDanZ succeeds a resolutely modern and typical sound that bewitches the first song rearranged by Cluzel, Addis Abèba bete of the star Alèmayèhu Eshèté, a over-vitamin resumption as the electrified voice of Asnakè Guèbrèyès.
The strong and dancing way is confirmed with another adaptation, Bèlomi bènna, a composition of the other star of Abyssinia, Mahmoud Ahmed. The piece Wub nat, composed by Guèbrèyes and Cluzel, puts the nail, or rather an ethio-jazz corner between rock and funk.
Mèdinana zèlèssègna, traditional title remarkably rearranged by Damien Cluzel, takes us into a hypnotic trance where the slow and vigorous vocal ascent of Asnakè is sublimated by a heavy guitar, finely curled by a final tenor sax.
Barely time to blow Aykèdashem emerged, a kind of ethio-hardcore-fusion with vocal rhythms to the Gesséssé Tlahoune, another great swinging Addis, followed by Sènaderé, arranged by Guilhem Meier, which sounds like a piece Of Sonic Youth who would have biberonized in a stroke the ethio-jazz.
It is simply powerful. So Cluzel’s new interlude, DatsunSèfer, allows us to digest before being carried away in a cover full of the exceptional Mela Mela, the flag of the Ethiopian groove, in the end breathtaking here.
Another pause, Mic-mac from Cluzel, and we are off again in a breeze of madness with Bati + Zènebèwèrq, beautiful ethio-rock to the Zappa. The last piece Sema leaves us a bit on our hunger, but the record remains truly an invigorating success and the Lyon group deserves its name: you can dance.”
akhaba.com – Jean-François Fontayne