D’Jazz Festival Nevers 
(Various venues in Nevers France. 11- 15 November 2023. Review by Tony Dudley-Evans)

The D’Jazz Festival Nevers is one of  the major French contemporary jazz festivals alongside Jazzdor in Strasbourg (also in November), Coutances in Normandy and Météo Mulhouse.  This year it presented its 37th edition in various venues in the lovely town of Nevers in Burgundy.  It is programmed by Roger Fontanel, who has built up a large and, seemingly, very loyal audience for a wide-ranging programme. 

The programme mostly focuses on contemporary jazz from France and Europe, and it was noticeable that many groups featured a varied instrumentation including strings, clarinets , bandoneon, rather than the instruments normally associated with jazz . Many of these groups played in a chamber jazz style, often with relatively straightforward compositions and harmonic structure, and some also featured a vocalist .

Examples of this phenomenon include the set by Mad Maple, a group featuring viola (leader/composer Séverine Morfin), bass clarinet, mostly acoustic guitar, and gentle electronics.  They played a set that was clearly structured, and which involved compositions leading into individual solos over a minimalist backing.  These solos led into occasional relatively gentle climaxes in which the electronics played a key role. 

Bass player Arnault Cuisinier led a group featuring settings to music of the poetry of  the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore with words sung very attractively by Élise Caron.  The very active and lively drumming of Edward Perraud contrasted very effectively with the chamber jazz of Cuisinier on bass, the guitar of Paul Jarret  and the vocals to create a very distinctive set that reminded me of Lucia Cadotsch’s Speak Low trio with Otis Sandsjø. 

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Swiss vocalist Andreas Schaerer, playing with guitarist Kalle Kalima and bass player Tim Lefebvre, presented something of a new direction for him with a set of songs with a relatively simple melodic structure. Nonetheless, the set did feature Schaerer’s expressive delivery, his beatboxing  and his verbal recreation of the sounds of brass instruments.

Two duos moved much more into free improvisation, but again in a more chamber style: Petit-Roy is a duo of Didier Petit on cello and Guillaume Roy on violin, and their set was totally improvised with a melodic call and response approach between the two instruments, and a certain amount of zany humour.  The Bize duo of Sylvaine Hélary (2019 interview feature) on various flutes and Robin Fincker on tenor sax and bass clarinet was based on initial melodic lines which led into collective improvisation which had a restrained but impressive energy. The Bize duo had also been running sessions in local schools during the week, and Sylvaine Hélary led her Incandescent nonet on the opening night creating a wide range of moods and textures in the music.

Two groups drew on other musical traditions and genres.  Arnaud Dolmen is a drummer born in Guadeloupe who has integrated gwoka rhythms from the Antilles into his quartet’s repertoire (album review).  The quartet moved between a rhythm dominated approach in which the double bass of Samuel F’hima locked in with the intricate rhythms from the kit drums and the ka drum, and, at other times, towards a more jazz oriented style..  In the former case saxophonist Francesco Geminiani and pianist Leonardo Montana played over the rhythms with a noticeably spiritual feel, while in the latter case they created more straightforward jazz lines.

Louise Jallu is a highly skilled bandoneon player from the Paris Region who has studied Astor Piazzola’s nuevo tango music in great detail, and developed and extended that music with great respect for the original through a series of intricate arrangements and occasional improvisation.   This set had a strong visual appeal through the shapes on the bandoneon created by Jallu as she played the instrument.

The two groups from the USA, led by Bill Frisell and James Brandon Lewis respectively, both played impressive sets.  Frisell’s trio with Thomas Morgan on double bass and Rudy Royston on drumsmoved seamlessly in and out of the tunes from their recent Valentine album on Blue Note Records.  The atmosphere was conversational in a way similar to Frisell’s duo performances with Morgan of a few years ago; Royston joins the conversation as an equal partner.  Lewis, leading a strong quartet with AruánOrtiz on piano, Brad Jones on bass and Chad Taylor, inspired with his own strong and original tone on the tenor sax,  and an equally original approach to improvisation that drew neither on the hard bop style nor the influence of the Coltrane school.

D’Jazz Festival has an important position with the French jazz festival scene and presents an impressive programme. 

Tony Dudley-Evans was a guest of the festival.

LINK : Festival website