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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.
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