Alliance Française de Delhi in collaboration with the French Embassy in India and the Grand, New Delhi organised  Jazz Concert by ERIK TRUFFAZ QUARTET on 5 February 2007, 6.30pm  at Sri Satya Sai Auditorium, Lodhi road.
 
French trumpeter Erik Truffaz, one of the hardest working artists in jazz.Most musicians would be content with one successful band, but French trumpeter Erik Truffaz is not the typical musician. Not content with leading two internationally acclaimed bands [the Erik Truffaz Quartet and Ladyland ], he also finds time to collaborate with the likes of saxophonists Michael Brecker and Joe Lovano, tablaist/producer Talvin Singh and trumpeter Jon Hassell.

And if he's not playing a live soundtrack to a 1930s silent Japanese movie he can be found exploring the possibilities of electro-acoustic music with octogenarian Frenchman Pierre Henry or with electronic musicians from New York. His musical voyage of discovery takes him endlessly around the world and yet it could all have been so very different. But for a chance meeting it could have been another life.

It was about ten years ago too that Erik Truffaz seemed to burst onto the international music scene, although his quartet had been gigging for six years already at that point. “We were very lucky, because before I was teaching piano and ten years later I met this man who had been my pupil and he told me, 'Oh, I'm working now in EMI records and if you have another project please give it to me and I'll try and give it to the manager of the jazz division.'” The rest, as they say, is history. Erik Truffaz's quartet became the first band Blue Note France signed. It was a lucky break as Truffaz is quick to recognize: “Incredible! Incredible because I was living on the border of Switzerland near Geneva and you cannot imagine releasing something if you don't live in Paris. So it was incredible because the man who signed us was not from Paris and didn't have this mentality. We were really lucky, because if we hadn't had this opportunity it would have been…another life.”

Inspired by artists ahead of their time such as Miles Davis, Pierre Henry, Jon Hassell and Yasujiro Ozu, Erik Truffaz is perhaps trying to create something new of his own, a music which transcends genre and categorization, something akin to what Jon Hassell calla “ Fourth World” music. Truffaz is typically humble:” I don’t think I’m genius so I try to take inspiration from genious, but I am not. We try to do our best and we are happy when people are happy.”

BIOGRAPHY

Erik TRUFFAZ

Erik Truffaz (born in 1960 in Switzerland) received an early introduction into the world of a professional musician, thanks to his saxophone-playing dad. When he was ten years old, the French trumpeter began performing in his father's dance band.

As he grew older, Truffaz performed with other bands in the region until he was 16 and heard Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. The great jazz trumpeter's music inspired him to learn more, and he set off for Switzerland's Geneva Conservatoire, where he became a student. Truffaz's repertoire expanded to works by Mozart and Verdi, and he performed as part of Orchestre de Suisse Romande.

He also played in cover bands before establishing a group called Orange. The band concentrated on Truffaz's compositions. Among its members was Marc Erbetta, a drummer who continued to play with Truffaz as the trumpeter evolved. Truffaz's jazz fusion artistry led France's Jury du Concours National de la Defense to bestow upon him the 1991 Prix Special, that country's coveted jazz award. Within three years, he became a leader with the release of Nina Valeria.

In 1991, he made the first of his three appearances on the stage of the Montreux Jazz Festival. For two years beginning in 1994, he toured Europe, Russia, and Brazil, thanks to funds bestowed by the ProHelvetia Foundation.

In 2000, Truffaz signed with Blue Note records and released The Mask, a straight ahead jazz session with Miles Davis similarities. By his second Revisite and third Mantis discs, however, Truffaz began to stretch the boundries of contemporary jazz by incorporating drum'n'bass and hip-hop rhythms, establishing himself as a cutting edge artist in his own right. In 2003, both Walk of the Giant Turtle and Bending New Corners were issued on Blue Note. Saloua from 2005 expanded his interest in hip-hop by adding some rap.