Jazz Articles

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Michel Lambert: Le Passant (The Wanderer)

by Troy Collins
January 19, 2006

Montreal-based and conservatory-trained percussionist Michel Lambert conceived the suite on Le Passant as a conceptual conflict, pitting a chamber orchestra against a small group of jazz improvisers. In the liner notes Lambert describes the piece as more struggle than collaboration, an argument as opposed to discussion, improvisation versus composition.

The first half of the recording embodies this aesthetic at its most combative, with the improvisers weaving in and out of the massed ensemble. Sometimes they struggle to be ...

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Michel Lambert: Le Passant (The Wanderer)

by John Kelman
December 16, 2005

The usual meeting place of improvisation and orchestra works around firm structure where the improvisers solo within the rigid confines of the orchestral arrangements, or the orchestra acts as an underlying support, scored in and around pre-existing extemporization. But in rare cases, daring composers have found ways to allow improvisers to remain untethered while at the same time broadening the sonic palette with a larger ensemble. Howard Shore's collaborative soundtrack with Ornette Coleman for David Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch was ...

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Michel Lambert: Le Passant (The Wanderer)

by Jerry D'Souza
December 9, 2005

Michel Lambert began working on the music on Le Passant (The Wanderer) in 1992. Time, however, brought about changes. He reduced his original symphonic work to its current instrumentation. He calls it a meeting of the two forces and a confrontation between music that is through-composed and freely improvised. The latter is seen in complete detail on the last seven pieces, which are improv-based. The first five (together comprising “Le Passant") have the improvisers and the orchestra meeting and finding ...