Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Benoit Delbecq / Francois Houle: Because She Hoped

156

Benoit Delbecq / Francois Houle: Because She Hoped

By

View read count
Track review of "Ando"

Benoit Delbecq / Francois Houle: Because She Hoped
The superior recording quality, tinged with reverb and a capacious aesthetic, serves as a third instrument on this studio recording by French pianist Benoit Delbecq and Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle. Both artists occupy that progressive, cutting-edge space within modern jazz contexts. With their third duo outing, the musicians use extended techniques in an intimate setting. Here, unorthodox treatments coalesce with sublime dialogues, spiking breakouts and melodic intervals, all executed with a sense of intimacy.

Ethereal, and at times economical in scope, the duo exercises rhythmic tapping maneuvers and other extraneous sounds often centered on fragile underpinnings. Delbecq's "Ando," depicts a prominent example of the artists' innovative tendencies. It recalls abstract world music interspersed with lush and quaintly stated melodies, as Delbecq plucks the piano strings in a cyclical manner where the illusion of an additional percussion instrument comes to fruition. However, these largely introspective dialogues feature Houle's whirling notes and Delbecq's understated block chords that conjure dreamlike effects, often propelled by unusual digressions and intervallic leaps.

Aided by whispery sub-themes, the musicians seemingly interrogate each other's souls during the variable processes. The overall program differs from the customary or boilerplate-like jazz duo undertaking, with the instrumentalists imparting an idiosyncratic stylization with enigmatic nuances, to complement a rather sanctified rite of passage.

Personnel

Benoit Delbecq: piano; Francois Houle: clarinet.

Album information

Title: Because She Hoped | Year Released: 2011 | Record Label: Songlines Recordings

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.