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Joëlle Léandre
Joelle Leandre started playing recorder but quickly moved to piano and from the age of 9 to 14 studied both piano and double bass in her home town of Aix-en-Provence. Her double bass teacher, Pierre Delescluse, encouraged her to apply to the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris where she won first prize for double bass. In 1976 she received a scholarship to the Center for Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo, a time that was to prove particularly influential due to encounters with Morton Feldman, and the music of Earl Brown, John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi. At the same time, she was able to experience the downtown New York music scene and continue her involvement in improvised music.
Joelle Leandre has continued to be involved with contemporary 'straight' music, not only as a member of contemporary music ensembles such as 2E2M, Itineraire and l'Ensemble Intercontemporain but particularly through the works of Cage and Scelsi, several of which have been recorded by her. Of Cage, she told Machart (1994):
"He will always be my spiritual father. I had already read For the birds before meeting him. It is an important book. John made me listen to the world around me: 'Let sound be what it is'. He opened up a field of possibilities; he gave me confidence; he cooked for me (he was a very good cook), with his friend Cunningham; he was good. A friend. He was the first to smile when I played my piece Taxi in the hall at Columbia University—I can still remember it!"
And, to the same interviewer on Scelsi:
"Another meeting; as important as meeting Cage; he respected the freedom of my actions; there was almost a feminine intimacy between us. His music overwhelmed me; it is one of the truest, because it speaks to us of our conscience, of our human condition. When I listen to this music it affects me most deeply. There isn't a 'geography' to it; there are waves which we make vibrate. I love to play his several pieces for double bass because they provide me with a complete soundworld. This music is paradoxical because it is at once complex and simple. I have known Scelsi since 1978, in Rome, after a stay at Buffalo University where I discovered Okanagon, one of his most extraordinary pieces. We rapidly became friends. Ten years later, I was there, on the 8 August 1988, at his death. It was as if he just faded away."
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Joëlle Léandre: Lifetime Rebel
by Neri Pollastri
RogueArt presenta questo cofanetto di cinque dischi interamente dedicato alla figura della leggendaria contrabbassista francese Joëlle Léandre, documentando la sua presenza al Vision Festival 2023, tenutosi presso il Roulette di Brooklyn, e aggiungendovi un concerto tenutosi pochi mesi dopo in Francia ed un DVD con un video nel quale l'artista suona alcuni brani in solo durante un'intervista in cui parla della sua carriera. Il primo disco, registrato appunto al Vision Festival il 13 giugno 2023, vede all'opera il ...
Continue ReadingNeri Pollastri's Best Jazz Albums Of 2024
by Neri Pollastri
As the year has come to an end, it is interesting to look back, reflect on the music we have enjoyed the most, and share it with those who may have missed it. This year, I have noticed, with surprise and appreciation, an higher than usual number of remarkable albums. Many are listed below. I will leave it for readers to decide whether this is a sign of the high quality of recent releases or a decline in my critical ...
Continue ReadingI Dischi del 2024 secondo Neri Pollastri
by Neri Pollastri
Arrivati a fine anno è sempre interessante guardarsi indietro, ripensare alla musica ascoltata con maggior piacere e condividerla con coloro ai quali può essere sfuggita. Quest'anno osservo con qualche sorpresa che i dischi meritevoli sono tanti (e forse non sono neppure tutti qui), ma devo dire che farei fatica a eliminarne qualcuno. Se sia segno dell'elevata qualità di quanto viene pubblicato o di un abbassamento dello spirito critico di chi scrive, siano i lettori a deciderlo. Non c'è ...
Continue ReadingJoëlle Léandre, Elisabeth Harnik, Zlatko Kaučič: Live In St. Johann
by Neri Pollastri
Tre eccezionali maestri dell'improvvisazione, che si conoscono e si stimano, dopo varie occasioni d'incontro con formazioni diverse, si trovano a suonare assieme nella forma più classica, quella del piano trio, e ne approfittano per dar vita a tre quarti d'ora di musica intensa e sorprendente, articolata e vivacissima. Stiamo parlando della contrabbassista francese Joelle Léandre, della pianista austriaca Elisabeth Harnik e del batterista sloveno Zlatko Kaučič, qui ripresi dal vivo sul palco dell'Alte Gerberei di St. Johann in ...
Continue ReadingUrs Leimgruber: AIR Vol. 2
by John Eyles
Released a year after the four-disc album AIR Vol. 1 (Creative Works Records, 2023) comes the three-disc AIR Vol. 2, which has a similar layout to the earlier release. Each disc of the four-disc album featured Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber in a duo with a different player: American drummer Gerry Hemingway, Swiss pianist Hans Peter Pfammatter, Swiss amplified spinet player Jacques Demierre, German synthesiser player Thomas Lehn. Each disc of the three-disc follow-up does the same: French double bassist Joëlle ...
Continue ReadingJoëlle Léandre: Lifetime Rebel
by Mark Corroto
Joëlle Léandre is the definition of a force of nature. She is unstoppable, unforgettable, and full of boundless energy. It is the nature of her force that recordings like Lifetime Rebel attempt to capture. These four CDs--plus an interview and solo performance DVD--capture a moment, but just a moment of her inexhaustible spirit, before she moves on. Recorded in 2023, Léandre was honored with a lifetime achievement award during New York's Vision Festival. The performances captured are by diverse and ...
Continue ReadingNovara Jazz Festival 2024
by Luciano Rossetti
A collection of photos from the Novara Jazz Festival in Novara (Italy) and others village from May 31 to June 9, 2024 featuring Joelle Leandre, Louis Sclavis, Vincent Courtois, Federica Michisanti, Joanna Duda, Alexander Hawkins, Myra Melford, Pasquale Mirra, Cristiano Calcagnile, Gabriele Mitelli, Guus Janssen, Francois Houle and many others musicians. ...
Continue ReadingJoelle Leandre and India Cooke - Journey (Nobusiness Records, 2010)
Source:
Music and More by Tim Niland
It is always exciting when two musicians get together to improvise in real time. Violinist India Cooke and bassist Joelle Leandre performed live in Denver during an academic conference called “Improvisation and Identity: Discovering Self and Community in a Trans-Cultural Age," and their duet was the perfect choice to reflect the nature of the proceedings musically. Spontaneously composed and improvised, their performance is suite called Journey, broken for the sake of programming into six sections. The music develops like the ...
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Bassist Joelle Leandre Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
"You're playing like Jimi Hendrix." That was the nicest compliment that French bassist Jolle Landre received in her first tour of Israel and the Palestinian Authority in late November, 2007. Landre's last solo concert was in Ramallah before an attentive audience that was mostly unfamiliar with her rsum as one of the most creative musicians of the last forty years. “I was on fire that concert," she tells. “Maybe like Hendrix."
Landre is one of those rare musicians that, for ...
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Mike Bullock
bassPhotos
Music
3rd Variation for Clarinet and Contrabass
From: That Overt Desire of ObjectBy Joëlle Léandre
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