Jazz Articles about Guillaume de Chassy
About Guillaume de Chassy
Instrument: Piano
Article Coverage | Calendar | Albums | Photos | Similar ArtistsGuillaume de Chassy: Silences
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Pianist Guillaume de Chassy insists that Silences is inspired by the example of clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre's late-1950s trio recordings. To be sure, like those records, this album is marked by intimacy and introspection, a strong clarinet sound and no drummer. But Silences, recorded at a French abbey, doesn't sound much like Giuffre's records--nor indeed, like much of jazz, at first blush.It's not at first clear just what this piano-clarinet-bass formation is up to. The helpfully titled “Birth of ...
read moreGuillaume de Chassy / Daniel Yvinec: Songs From The Last Century
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Pianist Guillaume de Chassy and bassist Daniel Yvinec tend to be rigorously conceptual in their approach to making records. Previous albums revolved around the jazz treatment of classic French chansons on Chansons sous les bombes (Bee Jazz, 2004), a documentary-like set of jazz chestnuts with vocals contributed by New Yorkers encountered on the street on Wonderful World (Bee Jazz, 2005), and standards played without their melodic lines and given titles from Gary Larson cartoons on Ghost of a Song (Juste ...
read moreGuillaum de Chassy: Faraway So Close
by Budd Kopman
Faraway So Close is a trio offering from pianist Guillaume de Chassy, whose previous recording, Piano Solo (Bee Jazz, 2007), was completely engrossing in its trenchant beauty. This album projects the same depth, sincerity and directness of communication as the former one, but in a trio setting. Music is mysterious in the manner in which its affects are felt. The piano, with its mechanical action, adds a further layer to the puzzle, as Jon Balke made clear ...
read moreGuillaume de Chassy: Faraway So Close
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
On the heels of two highly-acclaimed duet recordings with bassist Daniel Yvinec (the latter recently named to head France's National Jazz Orchestra), pianist Guillaume de Chassy last year released a remarkable Piano solo (Bee Jazz, 2007). You see the trend: duo, solo--the band can't get any smaller, so de Chassy has released a record for piano trio. It's characteristic of de Chassy's deliberate premeditation that he changes formats in this incremental way. Everything about the new record reflects ...
read moreGuillaume de Chassy: Piano Solo
by Budd Kopman
Piano Solo, which took a long time to come to fruition, is a marvelous set that manages, in a mysterious way, to convey as much about pianist Guillaume de Chassy through his music as the wonderful interview does through words. The relationship between music and words is complex and writing or talking about music at times seems utterly pointless. One of the joys of jazz is that you never know what wonders will be presented to your ...
read moreGuillaume de Chassy: The Ugly and the Beautiful
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
February 2007, Paris: Pianist Guillaume de Chassy has just recorded his first solo piano album and he is performing an entirely solo set at the Archipel theater to celebrate its release. If he's nervous, it doesn't show; he jokes easily with the appreciative crowd, leading them through the by-ways of the musical journey that led him to this stage. The easy-going affability is deceptive; when he begins to play, de Chassy is all concentration. I met with de ...
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