SOLOIST IMPROVISER

Here we escape from the classical framework of jazz, even if jazz is a particular form of improvisation. However, although in jazz one starts from and comes back to a pre-existing theme, free improvisation is a journey one makes with no (conscious) luggage. Of course, any artist is the result of an individual history influenced by his genetic heritage, environment, culture, instrument training – here, the piano and its 250-year tradition – gatherings, desire and finally free will, if it exists...

In my case, all the musics I love can be heard in my free improvisations : of course jazz, but also classical European music heritage, from the Renaissance polyphonists to contemporary music, going through some popular folk musics which hit me as flamenco or Irish music.

I have a special taste for solo free improvisation, seen as an instant compositional activity. It can be long, dreamed pieces, or preferably series of short and contrasted ones, of an easier access for the auditor. In this case, I can decide in advance to adopt not a melody or a harmonic series, but another constraint, related to the mode of using the instrument. Hereafter I present some pieces freely improvised in several contexts. First of all a long piece comprising several sequences :

• Lacs (1992)

and a suite of twelve pieces improvised in concert in 2007 :

(courtesy of Pannonica, Nantes)

Free improvisation can be of course carried out in a collective environment, as in this recent duo (2022) with the young Pierre-Marie Villaumié, a promising pianist living in Lyon. It is also an exciting way to gather other artistic expressions (dance, poetry, fine arts...). As such, in Céramusique project (2010), I have improvised on a series of pictures taken from Daphné Maroger's ceramic artworks, the mineral beauty of which had overwhelmed me. More recently, I played with the taleteller Claude Guigues, as in this story called Efftychia (2020, in French). I am always in search of such potential partners.

My CD entitled « The lonely singer » also includes a suite of pure improvisations called « Explorations ».

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