Jean-Marc Hebert: L'Origine Eclat​ee

Montreal-based guitarist Jean-Marc Hebert's third album, L'Origine Eclatee, sounds like something out of the ECM Records catalog. He is joined by trumpeter Lex French, bassist Morgan Moore and drummer Pierre Tanguay, forming a patient, subdued chamber jazz atmosphere that opens the first of the Hebert originals, "La Deteinte." The tune shimmers. Understatement is the plan of the day, though the force of the sound builds. Is this a haunting, like something trumpeter Arve Henriksen (no stranger to ECM) might create?

The title tune exudes a beautiful melancholy. The mix showcases everybody, without any grandstanding. The music, the compositions, and the mood are what matters. French's trumpet gives off a Miles Davis/L'ascenseur Pour L'echafaud (Verve, 1958) atmosphere. The gallows await us.

The sustained atmosphere of the music, from start to finish, plays out as a big plus. This is a compatible quartet; it sounds like they breathe together, as though their pulses are synchronized, their brainwaves intermixed as some fire smolders into the sound on "Sur L'Autoroute." On "Sequence mouvante" Hebert opens with some extended electro-techniques that evolve into a twangy Bill Frisell-like folksiness.

The dark atmosphere is mixed with some subtle grooves, segments of tunes that would not sound out of place in the late-'50s/early-'60s playlist of the then AM radio-friendly surf rock genre. Has Jean-Marc Hebert listened to Dick Dale and the Deltones, or Link Wray? Perhaps, perhaps not. But inside the down-tempo brooding, pieces of bright life, catchy hooks and optimism can be found, laid out with a subtle touch.