Home » Jazz Articles » Louis Sclavis
Jazz Articles about Louis Sclavis
Louis Sclavis / Dominique Pifarély / Vincent Courtois: Asian Fields Variations
by John Kelman
Few artists on the ECM roster reinvent themselves as regularly--and with such consistent success--as Louis Sclavis. While it is true that the French clarinetist (and occasional soprano/baritone saxophonist) often draws (and re-draws) from a gradually expanding pool of musicians, there are few label mates who have released as many albums as Sclavis, where the lineups literally change with each and every album. In fact, the closest he's come to repeating the same lineup back-to-back has been with his most recent, ...
Continue ReadingClusone Jazz Festival 2016 -36a Edizione
by Paolo Peviani
Clusone Jazz Festival Clusone Corte Sant'Anna 28-31.07.2016 “Sono molto contento di tornare a Clusone Jazz, un festival che ha una storia musicale importante" (Louis Sclavis). “Siete fortunati ad avere un festival così" (Roberto Negro). Potremmo continuare a lungo, citando tutti i musicisti che quest'anno si sono esibiti sul palco di Clusone Jazz e che, al netto delle parole usate, hanno espresso più o meno gli stessi concetti, ma ...
Continue ReadingLouis Sclavis Quartet: Silk and Salt Melodies
by Glenn Astarita
Iranian zarb (diagonally positioned drum)performer Kevyan Chemirani adds a worldly and exotic aspect to prominent French clarinetist, composer Louis Scalvis' band, featuring guitarist Gilles Coronado and keyboardist Benjamin Moussay who have performed with the leader on his Atlas Trio album, Sources (ECM Records, 2011). Sclavis' highly praised and disparate body of work for ECM Records is essentially unclassifiable, via his uniquely articulated jazz components, also framed on classical, free-improvisation, jazz fusion and world music persuasions. As a soloist, his resonant ...
Continue ReadingLouis Sclavis Quartet: Silk and Salt Melodies
by John Kelman
After reinventing himself with a completely revamped ensemble on Sources (ECM, 2012), reed multi-instrumentalist Louis Sclavis expands the purviews and possibilities of his Atlas Trio by adding percussionist Keyvan Chemirani to the mix for Silk and Salt Melodies. Sclavis has, in his 33-year career as a leader--and since coming to ECM Records in 1991 with the recording of Rouge (1992)--made a life's work of regular reinvention, both contextually in terms of lineup and stylistically through a broad cross-section of projects ...
Continue ReadingLouis Sclavis Quartet: Silk and Salt Melodies
by Karl Ackermann
With its ancient roots and latter-day association with New Orleans, Dixieland and swing, the clarinet isn't often a frontline instrument in modern jazz let alone avant-garde. A handful of players such as Don Byron and Marty Ehrlich have aided in its prominence but not many. In the hands of Louis Sclavis the bass clarinet is not only a deterrent against conformist thinking; it is an instrument with greatly expanded borders and characteristics. Sclavis incorporates European chamber music, Middle-Eastern samazens and ...
Continue ReadingPrincipato di Monaco: i trent'anni del Festival Printemps des Arts
by Libero Farnè
Una grafica d'impronta pop-postmodern caratterizzava la copertina del catalogo del Festival Printemps des Arts: un logo dalla comunicativa perentoria e la sfrontata aggressività di colori contrastanti costituivano un'efficace traduzione visiva della sua filosofia. Nell'edizione del trentennale il direttore artistico Marc Monnet ha dato vita a un festival curioso e tentacolare, sempre alla caccia di nuove collaborazioni organizzative, di validi interpreti emergenti, di opere inedite, di produzioni originali e di nuove sedi concertistiche, anche anomale, in buona parte sul limitrofo territorio ...
Continue ReadingLouis Sclavis: Maps of the Mind
by Ian Patterson
"My music? I know what it is, and I don't know what it is. It's a paradox." Now entering his fifth decade as a recording artist, multi-reedist/composer Louis Sclavis may not have a clear handle on the music he makes, but he has absorbed the lessons of all the music he has turned his hand to, from free jazz to film scores, from African music to neoclassical composition. Listening to Sources (2012), Sclavis' ninth release on the ECM label--and his ...
Continue Reading
