Selene Saint-Aime - Potomitan (March 25, 2022 Komos Jazz)

On her debut album, ‘Mare Undarum’, Sélène Saint-Aimé poetically transcribed the influence of the moon on her music, here, on this second recording, she transmutes her Caribbean cultural heritage.

In Antillean lands, the POTOMITAN, central pillar of Haitian voodoo temples, also designates the mother who supports the equilibrium of an entire family. This title stood out as an obvious choice for Sélène, after many months spent in Martinique during the pandemic.

Long conversations with her paternal grandmother retracing the history of their family, life, childhood memories and the strength of Caribbean women all 'infused' the writing and recording of this record.

The album plays out symbolically around the title track and it also acts as an analogy, interpreted by a trio, featuring the tanbouyé masters Sonny Troupé (Ka drums, Guadeloupe) and Boris Reine-Adélaïde (Bèlè drums, Martinique), who joined the team on their previous release. The interaction between the double bass, Sélène’s voice and these drums lies at the heart of the album.

Arawak Uhuru (freedom in Swahili), the first track, is a grand bèlè with three beats to the bar that honours the many Amerindian populations present in Martinique since the 1st century, at least. Arawak does not designate an ethnic group in the strictest sense, but more a linguistic family.

Irving Acao, still on the tenor sax, also takes part in this vocal trance based around the traditional theme of Martinican Béliya, fleshing it out with Cuban sounds and rhythms.

Selene Saint-Aime

Trumpeter Hermon Méhari, who forms a brass section with Irving on the majority of the tracks, brings his own rendition of ‘The Bird’ by Charlie Parker, who was, like him, originally from Kansas City.

The other cover on the album is an arrangement by Sélène of a theme from the Pelléas et Mélisande orchestral suite by Jean Sibelius. It places Mathias Lévy’s violin and Guillaume Latil’s cello at the forefront, in a version for a string trio and vocals. This track resembles a conversation with what lies beyond, and it is dedicated to Sélène’s maternal grandmother, as she was born exactly a hundred years ago.

Though she continues to sing in her own language all through the tracks, her first song in English, ‘White Birds, Silver Tree’ rounds off the record. Sélène wrote it in her uncle’s banana grove where cattle egrets come to nest. We can see them depicted on the sleeve painted by Lossapardo, near a dead tree with silver hues that graces a river’s edge, somewhere in the North of Martinique.

Without any repetition and (almost) without a score, the recording session played out organically, with Sélène dictating her melodies to the band on a piano which was in the room. Rhythms were sung then reproduced on the drums for a recording where the collective sound was captured live.

Far from a stiff reworking or a pan-Caribbean fusion, POTOMITAN, drinks from the spiritual and musical source irrigating afro-descendant culture, and invents a new folklore, vivified by improvisation. 

1. Arawak Uhuru

2. Béliya

3. The Bird

4. Indigo Bay

5. Mélisande (à mamie Jacqueline)

6. Potomitan

7. Mawu : Omens & Prayers

8. Akayé

9. Ézili

10. Bezaudin

11. White Birds, Silver Tree

SÉLÈNE SAINT-AIMÉ : bass, vocals and poetry

IRVING ACAO : tenor saxophone

HERMON MEHARI : trumpet

MATHIAS LÉVY : violin

GUILLAUME LATIL : cello

SONNY TROUPÉ : ka drum and drums

BORIS REINE-ADÉLAÏDE : bèlè drum

A&R Antoine Rajon

Recorded and mixed in September 2021 by Félix Rémy at Studio Pigalle, Paris.

Mastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London

Artwork painting by Lossapardo

Music composed by Sélène Saint-Aimé except ‘The bird’ composed by CHARLIE PARKER arranged by SÉLÈNE SAINT-AIMÉ, ‘Mélisande’, composed by JEAN SIBELIUS, arranged by SÉLÈNE SAINT-AIMÉ

and 'Béliya', arranged by Sélène Saint-Aimé, Irving Acao, Boris Reine-Adélaïde & Sonny Troupé.

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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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