The Sixth Jump Benoît Delbecq Trio

• 1Ando06:47
• 2Poursuite / Drums Page05:39
• 3Letter to GL03:42
• 4Barragan05:05
• 5Piano Page03:44
• 6Aka05:27
• 7Le même jour04:18
• 8Yompa04:57
• 9Le sixième saut03:58
• 10Pointe de la courte dune / Bass Page07:19
• Total Runtime50:56

Info for The Sixth Jump

This dual release of pianist Benoit Delbecq on Songlines has him in a trio setting with bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel and drummer Emile Biayenda, and performing a series of solo piano pieces on Circles and Calligrams. The Sixth Jump features gorgeous interplay among the musicians, the rhythms drawing from West African traditions and Delbecq's playing girded by a bracing, angular sensibility. On the solo album, Delbecq employs extended techniques that provoke and delight.

Space is key on The Sixth Jump. Each musician is sketching an outline of melody or rhythm on “Letter to György L.” (dedicated to the Austrian composer Ligeti), caressing the dark motif gently and leaving much for the chiaroscuro of a hanging piano dissonance or trembling ride cymbal. Even in the hard-grooving “Yompa,” Biayenda’s playing feels almost weightless, Delbecq’s pointillist pianism more a set of timbral excursions than soloing over a rhythmic base. The wide-open “Le même jour” is the perfect canvas for Delbecq’s tweaked Bösendorfer. The nearly arrhythmic piece for solo prepared piano sounds like a transmission from the deepest recesses of space.

Delbecq’s longtime collaborator, the electronics guru Steve Argüelles, provides remixes on three tracks that are guided by the same adventurous spirit as the rest of the album. Argüelles refracts Biayenda’s snares and gourds into crunching machine whirs toward the end of “Poursuite / Drum Page”; he loops and layers Delbecq’s piano tracks at various speeds on “Piano Page,” creating an eerie soundscape that trickles into some very dark places. It’s a very complete music that Delbecq and his compatriots make on The Sixth Jump, full of both intellectual rigor and deep emotional resonance. (DailyOM))

Benoît Delbecq, Piano
Jean-Jacques Avenel, Bass
Émile Biayenda, Drums, percussion
Steve Argüelles, Remixes

Awards:
THE NEW YORK TIMES Best of 2010
Best of 2010 - AllAboutJazz New York
Best of 2010 - Jazz Magazine/Jazzman
THE NEW YORK TIMES Critic's Choice, oct. 2010
Best of 2010 - The Georgia Straight - Vancouver
Our top albums 2010 - The Province - Vancouver
Best of 2010 - France Musique
********* JazzCIty (Germany)

Note: Track 2 and 10 where originally recorded in 48kHz, remixed and remaster at 96kHz.

Benoît Delbecq - Piano
Born in 1966, Parisian pianist Benoît Delbecq gures today among the innovators of the international contemporary jazz scene. His reputation and in uence have been growing steadily since the early 90’s, and the New York Times recently described him as « an original and unconventional pianist » who « expertly » invents a « serene » music. An inspired adventurer, a goldsmith of prepared piano and a visionary poet in the art of electronically recycling his own statements, he actively participates in the new aesthetic breakthroughs of today.
A former student of Mal Waldron, Alan Silva, Muhal Richard Abrams and Steve Coleman among others, Benoît’s international pro le took o around 1992 from appearances at Paris’s cutting-edge club « Les Instants Chavirés », in parallel with the founding of Kartet, The Recyclers and the Hask Collective, all of which helped revitalize the Paris creative music scene. Since then Benoît has been touring around the globe. He performs solo piano and solo electronics, leads or co-leads a number of bands from duos to quintets, and is involved in many multi-disciplinary productions of theater, dance, the visual arts, cinema etc. His music features mesmerizing grooves that shake out ashing, lunar melodies. An invitation to a voyage into a magic land (in Le Monde).

« Prix de la Sacem » in 1995 (with the collective Kartet), Benoît was awarded the « Prix de la Villa Médicis Hors les Murs » in 2001, and received the prestigious fellowship of the Civitella Fundation New York (2009). His last CDs, The sixth Jump (trio with bass player Jean-Jacques Avenel et drummer Emile Biayenda) and Circles and Calligrams (solo) both received the « Grand Prix International du Disque Charles Cros » 2010 and are part of the ten albums of the year for the New-York Times and Le Monde

Jean-Jacques Avenel, Bass
Jean-Jacques Avenel (b. 1948 in Le Havre), self-taught on bass, made his professional debut in 1972 with vocalist Colette Magny and the expatriate American Steve Waring. He was active in the Parisian free jazz movement, performing with Noah Howard, Frank Wright’s quartet and pianist François Tusques’s Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. He performed and recorded with saxophonist Daunik Lazro in the late ’70s and early ’80s, replaced Kent Carter in Steve Lacy’s quintet in 1981 and has performed with him ever since, recording over 20 CDs. In the ’80s he also performed and recorded with Butch Morris and Tristan Honsinger’s groups, and in the ’90s with David Murray, more recently working with several younger European pianists – Antonio Farao, Benoît Delbecq (Pursuit, Songlines 1999), Gaël Mevel, and the Australian Chris Cody – and recording with Lacy in Mal Waldron’s trio. He has also worked with Don Cherry, Richard Galliano, George Lewis, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Dino Saluzzi, Paul Bley, and many others.

Steve Argüelles, Remixes
Steve Argüelles (born 16 November 1963 in Crowborough, Sussex) is an English jazz drummer, producer and is the boss of the record label Plush. He has also worked in film and theatre. He is the elder brother of saxophonist Julian Argüelles. Steve currently resides in Paris, France.
From the age of 16, when he became the house drummer at Ronnie Scott's, through his seminal work as a founder of the 80s group Loose Tubes, and his work with Django Bates in the early Human Chain, he has shown an innovation beyond the usual role of the drummer. He also was the drummer of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy during a series of duo concerts.

Argüelles has collaborated with folk singer Corin Curschellas and John Wolf Brennan of Switzerland and with Nguyên Lê. He also plays in a trio with Benoît Delbecq and Noël Akchoté : The Recyclers. With Benoit Delbecq and electric bassist Christophe Minck, he also played with the French male popsinger Katerine on two LP : Les Créatures (1999) and Huitième Ciel (2002), and a lot of concerts trough Europe.

Booklet for The Sixth Jump