François de Larrard,

musician




JAZZ PIANO SOLOIST


I went to jazz through piano soloists : Thelonious Monk (his profile being displayed above), then Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Paul Bley, Martial Solal, Bill Evans and many others. This is a challenging job for the musician, sometime being confined to a background function (as in piano-bars). However, it is an opportunity to create music in real time, to establish a direct relationship with auditors, quite often in an intimate frame. The musical world can be rich, diverse and full of surprises, given the long tradition of piano music and its ability to evoke the orchestra. Solo piano can also be played in a purely acoustic context, keeping in mind that amplification quite often degrades both piano sound and nuances.


As a soloist I like to play jazz standards, which are well-known tunes played by many jazz musicians and with which the public is familiar. It is a way to catch the auditor's attention, by reference to a common past experience. Then comes the improvisation, which generally sticks to the original theme harmony, but with variations aiming at modifying and renewing the approach of original theme. Hereafter some samples of my jazz standards practice can be listened :



I even more like to play in solo my own compositions. They bring more surprise for the auditor – as long as they are not yet jazz standards ! - and they ask more creativity for the pianist. They also allow more variety in the improvisation mode : keeping the original voicings, as for standards ; using left-hand ostinatos, as in baroque music (chaconnes, passacailles...) ; keeping only some elementary cells around which a free improvisation can be developed, without pre-existing structure. The following examples display these types of executions :



I have recorded a number of piano solo albums, that can be listened going to this place.


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