Jean-Jacques Avenel

Waraba, the lion (that was the name that had given him his African friends) passed away. 

JJ was not just a sideman to the background of the stage, but a guide who walked before and showed the way. His bass enveloped us with a network of rhythm and sound (and what a sound!) From which emanated the echo of New York clubs in the dawn and the scent of precious woods from Africa. 

Award : Best of 2013 : « Resurgence » honorable mention, new release.
The New York City Jazz Record

The New York City Jazz Record. Tom Greenland USA

Beautiful reeds throughout – a sensitive yet striking mix of flutes and clarinet – the former played by Michel Edelin, the latter by Jacques Di Donato, who also handles a bit of soprano sax as well!

The instruments often fold over each other nicely as the tunes begin – fluttering in waves of sound that are pushed forward by the rhythmic intensity of Jean Jacques Avenel on bass and Simon Goubert on drums – but also able to find some quieter, more contemplative space at times too. The album's one of the most lyrical we've ever heard on the Rogue Art label, yet still has that highly creative and independent spirit that we like on the company's other discs too. Titles include "Tristezza Della Diva", "Black Snow", "Witches", "Jet Lag", "Tales Of Seven Lizards", "Bailes De Tango", and "Simon's Bubbles".  DUSTY GROOVE. USA.

This jazz express the face of facts.
This jazz is a brotherhood of jazz made of suppleness and amplitude.
This jazz live today, will live to morrow and after to morrow.
So, it’s a no-temporal jazz beyond words, fashion and shapes.
There is Michel Edelin and his flutes who manage harmony … quietly and loving flute witch stripe the instant.
There is Jacques Di Donato … clarinets witch drive from cover forbiden lands.
There is Jean-Jacques Avenel … a double bass witch found Africa in themes.
Tjere is Simon Goubert and his soft brushes, his explosions of cymbals, his fluid and bright rythmes. There is magnificents duets flutes/double bass with arco and clarinet/double bass. 

It’s an unforgettable jazz. IMPROJAZZ (tranlation)

...The fluteplayer Michel Edelin signs these eleven compositions conceived as many scenarios pretexts in the deployment of a amazing and rich sound material ... it’s in itself and to enjoy the meeting of four musicians that this « resurgence » is to be discovered, immediatly.
JAZZMAGAZINE / JAZZMAN (translation)

French flutist Michel Edelin is back among familiar faces on Resurgence, after his appearance with fellow flutist Nicole Mitchell on The Ethiopian Princess Meets The Tantric Priest (Rouge Art, 2011). He reconstitutes the quartet which last appeared together on Déblocage D'émergence (AA Records, 1995) for a studio set of 11 of his smart originals. On bass Jean-Jacques Avenel demonstrates why he held tenure for such a long time with the late Steve Lacy, freed to join the frontline by drummer Simon Goubert's purposeful time keeping. The final berth contains reedman Jacques Di Donato, a timbrally adventurous foil to the leader's pure-toned stories. 

It's a tight group which benefits from the lengthy shared experience, manifest in the confidence and exuberance with which they navigate Edelin's imaginative modern mainstream arrangements. Edelin never wastes a note, elegantly furthering his narrative with each breath, often pitching himself against the group tempo to create a dynamic tension. The leader 's assured flute lines provide the solidity around which his bandmates orbit. That's particularly the case with Avenel who takes a prominent contrapuntal role throughout, giving the set much of its character and interest, as Goubert takes care of business with his tuneful cadences.

 Even though there is a high degree of consistency, some cuts stand out. Foremost among them, "Jet Lag" features Avenel in melodic and rhythmically astute duet with both woodwinds, initially in cautious exchanges with Di Donato's voice-like bass clarinet, then after an involved unison, in mellifluous consort with Edelin's flute. Other highlights include "Errance Carminée" where a perky staccato theme, recalling the bassist's erstwhile employer, carries over to imbue both solos and ensembles with a stuttering urgency, the knotty "Witches" where overlapping riffs distributed around the group underpin a magisterial flute excursion, and "Tristezza Della Diva" where a mournful air for Edelin and Di Donato's clarinet leads to a disquieting colloquy of harmonics. On this showing, it would be a shame if we had to wait another 18 years before hearing more from this accomplished quartet.

John Sharpe. All about Jazz (USA)

« Disco di sicuro spessore » A . BAZZURO (All About Jazz. Italy)

Bon Appetit. Vier erfahrene, beschlagene und polyvalent denkende französische Improvisatoren kredenzen ein vitaminreiches, ingredienziengereiftes Ohrenmahl. Basis sind elf Themen- bzw. Melodieinseln des Meisterflötisten Edelin. Die daraus im freien Ideenaustausch entstandenen Episoden ranken sich um ein quecksilbriges, feinmaschiges Rhythmusgerüst, anhand dessen sich die im Midtempo gewandeten Improvisationsgebilde emporhanteln. Bestechend ist hierbei auch die hochentwickelte Interaktionsgabe unter den Akteuren. Der französischen, Jazz teilhaben lassenden Improvisationsmusik wohnt eben diese ansteckende Leichtigkeit und tänzelnde Liedhaftigkeit inne. Ebenso pflegt das Quartett, unter Bezug auf diese Eigenheiten, eine lyrische Exaltiertheit, versetzt mit capriccienhafter Eleganz, wiewohl es sich auch immer wieder genüsslich aus dem Fenster lehnt. Ein beseeltes Wiederaufleben des frankophil Imaginären. (han)

Andrea FELLINGER FreiStil

Sons d’Hiver Festival. Michel Edelin Quartet invites Steve SWELL (trombone, USA)

 Michel Edelin and Steve Swell concert is full of inventiveness and happiness intertwined with contemporary melodies, groovy rhythms and swerving free.

 Bob HATTEAU (Le Monde, Improjazz)

 Here is a group that is not mere circumstance, a group that has a sense of durability! Eigh­teen years after an already accomplished first recording**, the four musicians show in any case that the disorganized effects of commercial culture have no influence on an artistic desire newly reaffirmed in this gushing Resurgence, leaving eleven themes/sources drifting on its unique current linked in a distanced aesthetic which does not challenge the history of jazz but is known to be gaily unsubdued by current trends and to codes which guide a certain “European jazz”.

Here, the accent is put on the song, on melodic fluidity and rhythmic scansion, on the exactness of the narrative architecture, and one always keeps a respectful distance with large lyrical effusions and the emphatic expression of emotions. Michel Edelin, Jacques Di Donato, Jean-Jacques Avenel et Simon Goubert know how to calculate their phrases, sometimes as far as ellipse, they know how to delicately retie them, to proceed by allusions, sudden cuts, amused ruptures, leaps, tensions, parenthesis. One reaches an instant pleni­tude (“A line, a few summary vibrations, and everything becomes clear”, as Mallarmé wrote) irresistibly seductive while, paradoxically, the improvisations flee the affected poetic style and take a malicious pleasure in thwarting the discourse which, by the rhythm and range would ring too pure, too beautiful.

This musical matter is easily readable, also consistent and surprising in the limpidity of its certitudes, as if the four musicians were offering the listener the pleasures of smart intelligence and lending him what is necessary to enjoy it. Setting into movement the dor­mant water of this Resurgence amplifying this movement as far as its necessary flashes and penetrating explosions: this first of all requires an irreproachable text (Michel Edelin’s compositions, open forms indicating multiple directions), a large rhythmic freedom (keep­ing however a clearly admitted permanent pulsation) but more an open spirit and keen alertness of improvisers to serve a common project without abandoning as far as possible a part of their (strong) personality. So much so that one can hear to their best the flutist, the clarinetist/saxophonist, the double bassist and the drummer, so to say individually and collectively in this coincidence where the most expressive symptoms of sincerity naturally adjust themselves, in this prodigious fusion noted by André Hodeir to specify this music, where “the intensity of the moment and the depth of meditation” indicates “Jazz’s most beautiful claim to fame”.

Bernard Aimé (Translation Marie Alleyrat)

* Déblocage d’Emergence, recorded live on April 1995 à Tours, at Le Petit Faucheux, and