Nile Aron Ottignon

• 1Waterfalls03:14
• 2The Nile03:41
• 3Starfish (Clap Clap! Remix)03:31
• 4The Nile (Prieur de la Marne Remix)04:50
• Total Runtime15:16

Info for Nile

Mixing jazz, roots, Caribbean, Afro-beats and more, his world of music defies a Universal label. Re-gaining artistic independence in 2008, the prodigious pianist has found time for a prolific work load producing, composing and engineering an EP every six months (or thatʼs his plan) from his Berlin studio, in between collaborations with World Music and Afro-beat superstars. These include celebrated Senegalese percussionist Bakane Seck (featuring Grammy nominee Baaba Maal from Black Panther), and Puerto Rico based ÌFÉ – with a single to be released this spring, FYI.

From his native New Zealand to Kreuzberg, Aron has made waves in Europe, touring with WoodKid, writing with Stromae, and also literally making an EP called Waves, which was picked up by Blue Note (along with other releases The Nile and Team Aquatic).

If you canʼt find him touring his latest show (alongside 4 musicians, 2 percussionists, and a drummer), then look for his latest news and EPs on the usual social channels.

Aron Ottignon, piano
Samuel Dubois, steel pan, percussion
Jose Joyette, drums, bass

Aron Ottignon
is an extremely gifted pianist. Prizes have been rained on him ever since he began playing, and he could have fallen into the virtuosity trap and lent his talents to Rachmaninoff and Ellington, hiding behind those ten fingers. But an authoritative persona and some remarkable artistic convictions were maturing beneath the surface in this child prodigy, and today, from Auckland (where he was born in 1982) to Paris, and from Woodkid to Stromae, people have seen that the winding path he's taken was guided by an arrow-straight ambition that finally materialised in a first album.

Speaking of a pianist with a liking for repetitive motifs, it is tempting to say that Aron Ottignon has come full circle. From Blue Note to Blue Note: the label, on which the New Zealander makes his arrival, was also home to jazz pianist Andrew Hill, one of his first teachers. The story goes back to his childhood, and to a family where music was no stranger: his grandmother tickled the ivories in London's first silent-screen cinema before caressing the strings of a harp behind the eccentric Liberace; as for Aron's father, he played saxophone in Manfred Mann's quintet and, when accompanying visiting jazzmen playing concerts in Auckland, he used to invite them home to give advice to the young Aron. Andrew Hill was one of them; he met Aron when the prodigy was just ten.

This album contains no booklet.