Nouvel album pour le 1er avril 2016 "Afternoon in Paris" chez Dixiefrog – Harmonia mundi
Tournée duo, trio ou quartet
Produit par Staffan Astner (le guitarist électrique favori d’Eric Bibb, cet album popose un mix de Jazz et de Blues parfois légèrement teinté de mélodies empruntées au folk suédois.
Afternoon in Paris est une composition du grand et regretté John Lewis, pianiste et directeur musical du Modern Jazz Quartet, qui est aussi le grand-oncle de Yana.
Yana qui a toujours adoré ce thème a écrit des paroles sur la mélodie de John Lewis et l’a naturellement choisi comme titre de l’album.
Yana a écrit et composé la plupart des titres de ce second album qui traite essentiellement de l’engagement amoureux, de la famille et des nouveaux départs dans la vie.
Afternoon in Paris donne une excellente idée de l’étendue et de la palette des influences musicales de Yana et confirme l’excellente impression qu’avait laissé son précédent et premier album (Not a Minute Too Late).
Not a minute too late : premier album le 25 février 2014 chez Dixiefrog
Fille d’Eric Bibb, petite-fille de Leon Bibb, Yana Bibb a choisi le jazz pour prolonger une histoire familiale magistralement conduite par ses aînés.
Une telle descendance, la concurrence d’une discipline déjà très concurrentielle, notamment chez les chanteuses : le défi et l’attente seront forcément grands lors de la sortie de ce premier disque. Pas de quoi inquiéter pourtant une jeune femme totalement dans son élément, dont on saisit dès les premières notes, le naturel, la maîtrise d’un art apprivoisé, dompté avec grâce et une prestance à chaque instant lumineuse.
Sur des standards, « Save Your Love For Me », « You Don’t Know What Love Is », comme sur des thèmes délicatement ciselés par ses propres soins, Yana Bibb affirme une personnalité délicieuse, un timbre féminin gracieux, une musicalité qui s’instille entre les notes, et se démarque immédiatement des affèteries et stigmates de «la chanteuse de jazz ».
Dès que le swing le demande, le chant de Miss Bibb s’en accommode, lorsque le climat devient plus intimiste, il se teinte de nuances toujours dans une égale justesse de ton et d’intentions. Sur les plages les plus acoustiques, parfois drapée dans des cordes - le magnifique « Need You » -, ou accompagnée par la guitare de son père Eric Bibb (« Oceans »), la « présence » de son grand-père Leon Bibb (« Send Love »), la voix devient plus proche encore, touchante de simplicité et de sincérité.
Jazz, soul, folk, blues : dans tous ces registres, Yana Bibb séduit sans rien imposer d’autre que sa présence, tout au long d’un album magnifique. Une vraie belle découverte. >
Le nom des Bibb est entre de belles mains.
ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY
Yana Bibb is a vocalist and songwriter. Born in Manhattan, grew up in Sweden, currently based in New York City. The music she writes draws from Jazz, American Folk and Blues and incorporates elements of Scandinavian Folk melody.
Yana’s interest in music was cultivated early by her father, Blues artist Eric Bibb, she also found inspiration in her grandfather, Folk singer Leon Bibb and her great uncle, pianist John Lewis of The Modern Jazz Quartet.
Yana received her formal training in Jazz Vocal Performance at the City College of New york.
Whether singing standards or her own delicate compositions, her musical instincts are right on target, her voice intimate and touching, filled with sincerity and simplicity and without affectation.
She has performed with her trio at the Metropolitan Room, the Bitter End, Something Jazz Club and the Living Room in New York City. Yana has also toured as a member Eric Bibb’s ensemble, performing at the Edmonton and Calgary Folk Festivals, the Stanley Theatre in Vancouver and Cadogan Hall in London and at the Blue Note in Greenwich Village.
Most recently Yana performed at Le Ginestre Jazz Club in Turin, Italy, the New Morning as well as The Sunset in Paris to promote her new album “Not a Minute Too Late”.
Biographie
Discographie
1er album " Not a minute too late "
25 février 2014 - Dixiefrog
Anouar Brahem : oud
Klaus Gesing : bass clarinet, soprano saxophone
Björn Meyer : bass
Khaled Yassine : darbouka, bendir
For almost forty years and with a current discography spanning no less than 11 albums on the ECM label, Anouar Brahem has been constantly placing the age-old tradition of Arab music, whose emblem is his oud and its superb finesse, in different situations; not only does he set it in contrast against the free spirit and improvisation so typical of modern jazz, but also against the sophisticated harmonies of the erudite compositional tradition of the West and the refined forms of composition in other ancient cultural traditions from the Orient.
He has organized numerous cross-cultural encounters as well as juxtaposing different musical universes, thereby producing unsuspected potential in new but familiarsounding combinations, something which had never been done before. In 2009, he recorded "The Astounding Eyes of Rita", with a new group that included the soft melding of two sounds: the amazing fluidity of German-born Klaus Gesing on bass clarinet and the flowing notes on the bass guitar of Swedish-born Björn Meyer, to give a mixture of ascetic sophistication and sensuous lyricism so typical of oriental music, declined here by the music of the oud with its notes closely interwoven into the percussive background, played by Lebanese artist, Khaled Yassine. This group has had worldwide
success, both for its rich repertoire and the subtlety of the varied instrumentation, and now, ten years later, it is not only totally up-to-the-minute and more enduring and creative than ever, but Anouar Brahem had made a secret pact with himself never to look back and also vowed to renew his inspiration constantly by accompanying each new project with unusual orchestral combinations. So here, recognizing the lasting qualities of this group, he decided to add a new chapter to this story.
His main resource has been these years of shared experiences with the group, where their coherence and self-confidence has been increasing all the time. Anouar Brahem's new adventure puts his own terrain through the prism of this particular sound universe once again, daring to cast a backward glance at his whole career by mixing a few familiar compositions of the quartet with a scattering of older themes from other projects. This leads to further exploration of the orchestral possibilities of a decidedly unusual instrumentation whose origins lie in an extremely up-to-date kind of cross-cultural chamber music. Within this hugely expansive space, Anouar Brahem and his fellowmusicians
create a softly refined, graceful and dream-like world, borrowed as much
from the contemplative oriental tradition as from jazz. The resulting music, rigorously demanding and poetic, moves constantly between modesty and sensuality, nostalgia and contemplation: it is a magnificently intimate spiritual journey to the heart of sound.
The Astounding Eyes of Rita
Album September 2009, ECM
2019 marks the tenth anniversary of the album. And the interest of the audience is still there, as if it was the first year.
With :
Anouar Brahem: oud
Klaus Gesing: bass clarinet
Björn Meyer: bass
Khaled Yassine: darbouka, bendir
A delightful new assembled by Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem.
The combination of the bass clarinet with the oud suggests a link to Anouar's Thimar trio, but this East/West line-up often feels closer to the more traditionally-inclined sounds of Barzakh or Conte de l'Incroyable Amour. Klaus Gesing, from Norma Winstone's Trio, and Björn Meyer, from Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, are both players with an affinity for musical sources beyond jazz, and they interact persuasively inside Brahem's music.
A dance of dark, warm sounds, urged onward by the darbouka and frame drum of Lebanese percussionist Khaled Yassine. The album is dedicated to the memory of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
Souvenance
Music for oud
Album January 2015, ECM
This project is performed in 2 formations:
- the quartet
with Anouar Brahem (oud), François Couturier (piano), Klaus Gesing (bass clarinet ), Björn Meyer (bass)
- the quartet plus a string orchestra of 20 musicians
Probably Anouar Brahem has never gone so far into the balance between formal elegance and freedom of expression, lyricism and restraint, sensuality and asceticism, as he does here with this new repertoire which seems to ideally synthesize almost fifteen years of his personal and aesthetic quest for an authentic "common understanding" between Orient and Occident. Leading a brand-new Quartet, Brahem here revisits every facet of a musical universe that is at once melancholy and introspective in integrating his sensibilities and instrumental language—undeniably anchored in the Arab tradition—with the Impressionist, evanescent piano of colourist François Couturier, the pulsing sensuality of Björn Meyer's electric bass, and the misty, dreamlike, Nordic romanticism from the bass clarinet of Klaus Gesing.
As if to further emphasize the hybrid nature of his universe, here Brahem plunges his quartet for the first time into the sound-fabric of arrangements that are both sumptuous and minimalist, orchestrating a string-ensemble where the soloists (beginning with the melodic enchantments of the oud) are presented in an organic, voluptuous setting which is particularly stimulating. With ever more refinement in its melodic lines and at once contemplative and subtly narrative in its developments, the music contained in Souvenance possesses those qualities of self-evidence, naturalness and simplicity which are the hallmarks of works of genuine inspiration.
Other show already toured :
Blue Maqam
Album October 2017, ECM
Anouar Brahem: oud
Dave Holland: doublebass
Jack DeJohnette: drums
Django Bates: piano
Prestigious European tours in April 2018 and March 2019 :
Uppsala, Konsert & Kongress (Sweden) | Berlin, Boulez Saal (Germany) | London, Barbican (England) | Dublin, The National Concert Hall (Ireland) | Lyon, Auditorium (France) | Anvers, De Roma (Belgium) | Luxembourg, Philharmonic (Luxembourg) | Morges, Théâtre de Beausobre (Switzerland) | Köln, Kölner Philharmonic (Germany) | Paris, Paris Philharmonic (France) | Blagnac, Odyssud (France) | Zurich, Tonhalle (Germany) | Basel, Musical Theater (Switzerland) | Munich, Philharmoni (Germany) | Hamburg, Elbphilharmonic (Germany) | Lisbon, Gulbenkian Música (Portugal) | Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Belgium)
Biography
For almost forty years, Anouar Brahem, Tunisian composer and oud master, has been creating music both rooted in a highly sophisticated but ancestral culture and eminently contemporary in its global ambition. Anouar appears in many cross-cultural encounters, as well as developing entirely new links and similarities between styles and worlds whose potential closeness had never been considered until he discovered them. For him it was (and still is) a matter of highlighting the age-old Arab tradition of learned music, represented in its finesse by his oud, not only by confronting his instrument with modern jazz, but also with the sophisticated harmonies of the erudite compositional tradition of the West and refined forms from other ancient cultural traditions from the Orient.
His 11 albums on ECM, label acclaimed by the public and international critics alike (including Astrakan Café, Thimar, Le Pas du Chat Noir, Blue Maqams etc.), together with the triumphant success of his haunting music in concerts held in prestigious halls throughout the world, and his fellow-musicians including a remarkable selection of famous jazzmen such as Jan Gabarek, Dave Holland and jack DeJohnette are sufficient evidence to confirm Anouar's place as one of the most fascinating and inspirational artists in the current world of instrumental music.
His sensitive yet rigorous music constantly redefines a cleverly composite universe of poetry and culture, ever balancing between discretion and sensuality, nostalgia and contemplation.
Awards
De Klara's Classical Music Awards: "Best International CD - World" for Blue Maqams (Belgium, 2018)
Echo Jazz Award: "Best International Musician of the Year" for The Astounding Eyes of Rita (Germany, 2010)
Edison Award for Le Voyage de Sahar (The Netherlands, 2006)
Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics' Award) for Thimar (Germany, 1998)
National Music Award (Tunisia, 1985)
Reviews
The album is at once an extension and an audacious departure from the tradition of the oud. Despite his formidable knowledge of the maqarnat, an ornate system of modes that anchors Arabic music, he seldom bases his improvisations directly on the maqams. His phrasing is pure and uncluttered, expressing itself through silence nearly as often as sound. ... Composed of elegantly flowing lines and somber, breathlike silences, the music shimmers with the overtones of the piano. ... Mr. Brahem bases several of the tunes on spare, broken chords, repeated in the childlike manner of Satie. Simple though they are, however, they contain beguiling Arabesques. The three musicians rarely appear at once, performing as a trio on only seven of the album's 12 tracks. For the most part, you hear duets - piano and oud, oud and accordion, accordion and oud. The musicians often double each other's lines, but seldom in unison, which enhances the music's intimacy while producing a floating, echo effect.If every band projects "an image of coummunity," as the critic Greil Marcus once suggested, then Mr. Brahem's trio - part takht, part jazz trio, part chamber ensemble - evokes a kind of 21st century Andalusia, in which European and Arab sensibilities have merged so profoundly that the borders between them have dissolved. The image may be utopian, but its beauty is undeniable.
Adam Shatz, The New York Times
Throughout the record, the musicians maintain an exquisite balance and make only subtle changes in tempo or tone. Their sense of melancholy is so natural and comfortable it's childlike. On this tune, "Leila and the Land of the Carousel" a waltzing rhythm and revolving melody suggest a girl on that classic joyride...When he quit the oud for a while and played the piano instead, Anouar Brahem recovered his powers of musical myth-making. On this record, he creates a fairy tale setting and ultimately a storybook ending. The accordion lays down sustained chords like lengthening shadows in a forest. The piano conjures low-key sunlight and offers overtones of reconciliation. And in the arabesque path of "The Black Cat's Footsteps," Brahem finds a way back home to his beloved oud and to the songbird inside.
"All things considered", USA - National Public Radio