Airelle Besson & Lionel Suarez: Blossom

Trumpet-accordion duos are rare enough to be filed under 'endangered species,' so infrequent are sightings. Dave Douglas and Guy Klucevsek broke cover with a number of duets on the quartet album Charms of the Night Sky (Winter & Winter, 1998), but it was another quarter of a century before the population doubled with the appearance of Eric Vloeimans' and Will Holshouser's live duo album Two For the Road (V-Flow Records, 2022). One or two trumpet-accordion pairs have since been spotted in the wild, but none more colorful or uplifting than trumpeter Airelle Besson's and Lionel Suarez's Blossom. The fruit of ten years of collaboration, theirs is a joyous musical mating of chamber jazz and popular French traditions.

A strong folkloric vein colors Suarez' playing, but like Besson, Suarez's classical training and jazz pedigree also shine through on these nine originals and three covers. The first notes of "Blossom" arrive like warm sunshine as riffing accordion underpins Besson's vibrato-free melodic lines—this is music to lighten the mood of even the gloomiest merchants of doom. Lilting harmonies and enveloping counterpoint are common to all the tunes, though variations in tempi and moods across the dozen pieces keep things fresh. From the sweet nostalgia of "Kyoto dans la Brume" and the unadorned lyricism of "Answer Me," to the bold melodies and urgent rhythms of "Sans laisser d'adresse," the duo switches between neo-classical elegance and self-styled roots music with panache.

With its sing-song melody and gently loping rhythm, Carla Bley's much covered "Ida Lupino" is the perfect vehicle for Besson's and Suarez's contrapuntal dialogue. A less obvious choice, perhaps, is Pat Metheny's and Lyle Mays' wistfully contemplative "Au lait," but Besson and Suarez bring warmth to its contours. The solo trumpet miniature "De passage" serves either as a meditative coda to "Au lait," or an embellishment-free intro to Suarez's melodically flowing "Les Tuiles Bleues."

Besson and Suarez spin bright ribbons of solos, beautifully judged in both length and tone throughout the album. But the unison and contrapuntal threads they weave in between are every bit as luminous. Fittingly, the co-composed "Résonances," spare yet affecting, closes the album on a tender note. Lyrical, engaging and uplifting, Blossom is an album to banish the blues. Hopefully, this is just the first duo outing from two remarkable musicians.