Komos Jazz - Power Of Soul / The Music of CTI (August 20, 2021)

When his mother brought Stanley Turrentine’s Salt Song LP back from a trip to Canada, Julien Lourau, then a teenager, was impressed by the scope of the sound and the groove of the saxophone. He was also charmed by the lush arrangements and funky sound of the record, typical of releases on the CTI label. Created by producer Creed Taylor, CTI left an imprint in the minds of 70s jazz fans much like Blue Note did in the 60s, and it even ended up releasing work by artists who started out on this mythical label such as Stanley Turrentine and Freddie Hubbard. The two even shared the same sound engineer, the great Rudy van Gelder.

Yet CTI, though highly prolific during its 15 years of activity, has not benefitted from the same aura as its predecessor.

“To breathe life into this album, I listened to a wealth of CTI releases and discovered some I had never heard before. I noticed, oddly, that many of today’s musicians know very little about CTI - a label unfairly considered as minor.”

The choice of tracks was determined by Julien’s personal tastes, always keeping in mind a desire to help people discover them yet focusing on the joy of actually playing them too.

“The album is made up of 9 pieces. Mathieu Débordes got everything down to the nearest note before we even attempted to play them. CTI didn’t hold back in fuelling their compositions with brass and violins, but I erased this aspect and pared things down to a bass, drums and two keyboards.”

English drummer Jim Hart, someone Julien worked with during his London years, propels the group - from hard-bop polyrhythms with “drum & bass” inflections to a reworking of classic Red Clay.

Sylvain Daniel on the bass and Arnaud Roulin on the analogue keys are two musicians close to the saxophonist, and that he met when they were students in 1999 while organising a master class at the Conservatoire de Nantes. Since then, they have become his esteemed companions.

The collaboration with young pianist Léo Jassef began on this recording, where he also plays the Prophet 5. The dynamic and overlap of the many keyboards played by Arnaud and Léo bring the record a richness of timbre and harmony that the strings and brass provided on the CTI recordings.

For the final track on the record, Julien called upon his friend of 30 years, guitarist Bojan Z, for a fresh, Gospel take on Love and Peace, a track recorded by Quincy Jones in 1969, which here, is dedicated to Bojan’s recently departed brother.

“When it comes down to it, this album really is as I had imagined it, with, luckily, a few unexpected turns. I created a playlist I then claimed as my own. But in the end, I must admit that I would have loved to have composed some of these tracks.” 

1. People Make The World Go Round

2. Psalm 150

3. Westchester Lady

4. Piece Of Mind

5. Power Of Soul

6. Don't Mess With Mr. T

7. Red Clay

8. Firebirds - Birds of Fire

9. In The Beginning

10. Love and Peace

Julien Lourau : tenor and soprano saxophones

Arnaud Roulin : analog synthesizers

Léo Jassef : piano & prophet 5

Sylvain Daniel : bass

Jim Hart : drums, percussions, vibes, marimba

Arrangements by Mathieu Débordes and Julien Lourau

'Love and Peace' in memory of Nebojsa 'Keba' Sulfikarpasic featuring Bojan Zulfikarpasic on guitar, Mathieu Débordes on trombone and Sylvain Daniel on fluegelhorn

A&R : Antoine Rajon

Recorded by Félix Rémy at Studio Pigalle, Paris, January 2021

Mastering by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London

Cover artwork by Brüno

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Julien Lourau & The Groove Retrievers (2BIRDS1STONE PRODUCTIONS 2017)

Julien Lourau saxophoniste touche-à-tout de la scène jazz française, propose un projet original avec son big band : neuf musiciens et la franco-haïtienne Mélissa Laveaux au chant. Du groove au funk, portés par des cuivres de première classe (Antoine Berjeaut, Céline Bonacina) et du violon de Jasser Haj Youssef, ce sera une explosion de styles et d’influences au service d’un groove à la française aux accents latinos.

1 Kunnossa / Gafieira Universal Medley

2 La Congo

3 La gitana me ha dejado

4 Samuel

5 Red Sands

6 Eddie Wildfire

7 Mah-ore

8 Tu mi turbi (Intro)

9 Tu mi turbi

Julien Lourau : saxophone, compositions 

Mélissa Laveaux : chant, guitare, compositions

Antoine Berjeaut : trompette

Céline Bonacina : saxophone baryton

Jasser Haj Youssef : violon, viole d’amour

Mathilda Haynes : guitare

Robert Mitchell : piano

Felipe Cabrera : basse electrique, contrebasse

Jon Scott : batterie

Sebastian Quezada : percussions

Javier Campos Martinez : percussions

Matthieu Desbordes (arrangements)

Bojan Z x Julien Lourau - Duo (2016)

After 25 years of lively collaboration and friendship, Bojan Z and Julien Lourau are going to record their duo!

The duo was created at the Pannonica Club in Nantes, France, at the end of last century, in 1997 to be precise. Some of you still remember this perhaps.

17 years later, it seems relevant to us to fix these moments in a club as well – in this case at the Triton in Les Lilas, Paris – in the presence of our audience, in order to offer you this album.

It’s a special area of exploration and creation in which we’ve been able to compose and reinterpret our respective repertoires with great joy.

“But”, you may wonder, “Why appeal to us for help?”

That’s because it entails a new departure, a new way of working and because we would like to share this with all of you who’ve been following us for so many years. It is our wish to redefine the relation that connects us to you since long-time, by involving you in the process of making this album and, for sure, of many more to come. In spite of our experience and reputation, we haven’t been able to find a partner that would permit us to meet the quality requirements that we intend to put into this recording.

Because quality is the issue.

To those who know us, we have always insisted on giving you excellent sound and esthetic quality, both in our individual as in our common projects. 

This implies an important investment starting by the recording itself and later in post-production. With this new approach, we would like to re-establish these quality standards and, at the same time, bring about a change in our way of producing our music, together with you.

Together we can do better, and only the best sounds good! 

The story of Bojan Zulfikarpasic and Julien Lourau is mainly one of friendship, both personal and musical. Combing the Paris jazz clubs in the late eighties, they quickly found each other in the short-lived but legendary underground band called Trash Corporation, a sort of playground for these young mavericks where they would try out new ways and stretch musical boundaries.

During that same period, they both received their first professional awards. In 1990 Bojan wins the soloist’s prize at the Concours National de Jazz de la Défense, the most significant jazz competition in France, and in 1992 it’s Julien’s turn to do the same. It would be the kick-off of two careers filled with adventure, individual successes as well as projects on which they collaborated. Bojan and Julien have more in common than just belonging to the same generation. The same spirit of non-conformity unites them and they can both take pride in having left the straight and narrow during their respective careers, crossing geographical and musical borders, rejecting fixed formats and automatisms.

With a collaboration and friendship that has lasted for over twenty years, concerts are bound to be marked by their musical empathy. The listener is pulled in immediately and gets a real sense of the time that’s passed between them. There is a strong physicality to their playing; their music can be forceful and explosive, yet they leave room for introspection and humour as well. Their music is energetic, fluid, fierce but not brutal and without meaningless exuberance of notes. This is pure friendship, solid and uncompromising.

1. Relaxin@

2. Seeds (Intro)

3. Seeds

4. Fuzzlija

5. Bulgarska

6. Mr. Waits

7. Roumgrois

8. Gradino Kolo

9. Grana Od Bora

10. Zeven

11. Hulio's Blues

Bojan Z (piano)

Julien Lourau (saxophone)

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