Roman Labaye

Born into an artistic family, Romain rapidly showed signs of an interest in music and naturally focused his attention on the drums, which he started playing at age 2.

At around 5, he went to a "music introduction" class but found himself more interested in trying every instruments in the room rather than listen to what the teacher said.

At 9, he entered the drums & percussions class with French percussionist Jean-Marc Quillet, who gave him many advice  to improve his playing and the ear but never really taught him how to play the drums, preferring to stimulate him and making him discover improvisation.  He also introduced him to jazz, and offered him to join his jazz workshop. It definitely had a big impact on his musical​ upbringing.

At 11, Romain started to play with some jazz musicians in Normandy such as saxophonist Laurent Dehors or pianists Pierre Gaudin & Joël Drouin.

At age 14, he experience his first major musical shock. Weather Report. Having not heard anything like this before, it became the reason why he wanted to play bass, completely mesmerized by Jaco Pastorius.

He never took a lesson, but spent countless hours listening, analyzing and transcribing everything he could.

Of course, Jaco Pastorius isn't the only bass player who influenced him.

Paul McCartney, Linley Marthe, Michel Alibo, Etienne Mbappé, Alphonso Johnson, Marcus Miller, Sting, Neil Jason, Stanley Clarke, and Paul Jackson also influenced his style and contributed to his evolution and his learning of the instrument.

Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, The Brecker Brothers, Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, Chick Corea, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Police and Michael Jackson are also an important part of his influences.

Between age 19 and 23, he attended Rémi Biet's jazz classes at his hometown conservatory and in the meantime, played with various musicians in Normandy, both as a drummer and bass player.

In 2009, he founded the band TOTEM with some other friends of the conservatory.

In September 2011, he moved to Paris to enter the renowned Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and he attended classes from Riccardo Del Fra, Glenn Ferris, Hervé Sellin, Jeff Ballard, Scott Colley, Danilo Perez, André Ceccarelli…

In the meantime, he would spend most of his nights at Le Baiser Salé Jazz Club, where he would meet and jam with some of the great names of the Parisian Jazz Scene such as Alain Debiossat, saxophonist of the band SIXUN, who will give him his first important gig.

In the spring of 2012, he met French saxophonist Céline Bonacina and she will hire him for what would be Romain's first tour ever. Their first gig together was at Cully Jazz Festival, opening for Carla Bley and Steve Swallow. They played together until 2014 and had the opportunity to perform at Jazz in Marciac & Jazz à Vienne, among other places. They would find each other again in Nguyên Lê's "Dark Side Nine" project in 2015.

He eventually leaves the conservatory after one year, in October 2012, to focus on his career.

In late 2012, he started working with French-Vietnamese guitar player Nguyên Lê and this will be the start of an ongoing collaboration on several projects such as Songs of Freedom, Jimi's Back!, Dark Side Nine, Nguyên Lê Trio, as well as some international projects with Vietnamese artists and musicians such as Tung Dung or the musical and acrobatic show "Overseas".

In the fall of 2016, he became Scott Henderson‘s new bass player, along with drummer Archibald Ligonnière. Their new album, People Mover, has been released on July 1st, 2019.

A new album is in the works and should be released in 2023.

In 2018, he founded the band Phonic Nomads with his friend Archibald Ligonnière and their first album is called The Nomads' Way.

He played in some of the greatest jazz festivals and venues: Jazz à Vienne, Jazz in Marciac, Cully Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott's, The Baked Potato, The New Morning, Paris Jazz Festival, La Défense Jazz Festival, Jazz sous les Pommiers and many others in the world …

Touring places: France, Reunion Island, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Ukraine, South Korea, China, India, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, United States, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Romania, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, Estonia.

Gear

Markbass Amplification, Elixir Strings and MAMA pickups.