TOPSTARS                        by Frédéric Jambon
HIGH TIMES
First disc of the guitarist from Brest Jacques Pellen
The jazz of the great spaces

Coproducted by the town of Brest, the Amadeus studios and Bertrand Dupond from Lorient, distributed by Caravan, here that leaves, before the new year, a true disc of festival, jazzo-Celtic fireworks lit by crackled guitarist from Brest Jacques Pellen, known for his concerts with Paboeuf, Mélaine Favennec or Kristen Noguès. Around "a old campaigner", the Canadian trumpet player Kenny Wheeler, the boiling jazzman of the West joined together two of the best musicians of the moment, the transalpine double bass player Riccardo DEL FRA and the magyar drummer Peter Gritz. The result of this recording which lasted one day and a night? The echo of what will be the European music of tomorrow. With knowknowing a enivrant mixing of jazz roots, of folklore shelled, italian stories and of Hungarian landscapes, the whole cemented by an omnipresent Celtic culture. Celtic like the small pocket, soft at eye, which represents a gilded embroidery making think of a Brittany costume. The superb compact one of Jacques Pellen does not odd in the catalogue of the mythical Scandinavian firm of discs ECM.
It can the most beautiful compliment that one can make to "Jacquot" who, last Thursday, surrounded by Peter, Riccardo and some friends, presented its first disc feverishly. Interview-puzzle from a secret musician which dont like questions and even less answers.

Question: How passed the last meeting with Kenny Wheeler?
Jacques Pellen: It's thanks to Peter Gritz that the contact was established with this terribly secret musician. One made him listen to our music. He was packed. Thereafter, we carried out together a round in Brittany with in particular two concerts, in Brest and St Malo.		 qu: And the disc?
J.P: It's simple. One would found together on December 2-88 and one would left the 3. The disc was out of box. Then, I had worked much with the mixing with my friends of the Amadeus Studios.
qu: Your universe is difficult to classify. Which are your influences?
J.P: Traditional guitar, Celtic music and jazz. Let us say folk to Miles Davis.		 qu: Which Miles Davis?
J.P: That of the years 50-60, (of "Kind of blue", of "Giant Steps") and of the quartett with Elvin Jones.
qu: John Coltrane also undoubtedly, since you made there reference?
J.P: Not, I have makes reference to him in this recording but that have nothing to see with him. What I know of Coltrane is only a drop in his work.

 Coltrane, Stivell, modern jazz, the free, so difficult to give a progress report on the mysterious Jacques Pellen as to find his course into full tempest. Especially as the musician, shy person and facetious, dodging interrogations. His friend and drummer Peter Gritz come to the rescue: ""Music of Jacques is total. One finds the pop one, rock'n'roll, jazz, like as much of issues. One can think so that done today Marc Ducret (the two musicians admire themself) with in more this bottom of Celtic traditions who can also think makes the force and the difference of Jacques"." Here a quite admiring definition of the musician. The puzzle is formed.

qu: And Peter Gritz, the Hungarian, in all that?
Peter Gritz: "always I say that the Celtic world is my second native land. I know Brittany before knowing France. I made up a title which is calling "L"est de Kernélec" (The East from Kernelec), name from a village of the Mounts Arrée. This area counts much for me".".		 At the question of work carried out about the sound of the album, the answer arrives, right and effective like a passing shot of Boris Becker, a given answer from Patrick Audoin, sound engineer of the Amadeus Studios: ""with similar musicians, there is such a potential that one haven't many things to make". In fact, the quality of this laser disc is quite simply admirable.

For anecdote, let us add that this very beautiful disc would perhaps never have been done without vigilance of Anne Millour, the programmer of "Jazz in Vauban" who remembers: "When Jacques cames announce to me that he was going to play with Kenny Wheeler, he was so much moved that he had quite simply forgotten to indicate the adress of Kenny on the parcel of partition, intended for the Canadian trumpet player who lives between London and the North-American continent". Ouf! one have escaped!


Remarks collected by Jean-Luc Germain and Frederic Jambon.





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