Géraud Portal 4tet feat. Jacky Terrasson
Biography Géraud Portal 4tet feat. Jacky Terrasson
PLUME
When was the last time you heard something like this? When was the last time hearing an alto saxophone felt like a punch in the gut? If PLUME (“feather” in French) seems to come out of nowhere, there is no question about his talent. He makes a mark on everyone who hears him for the first time. Catches the attention of musicians who hadn’t heard of him. Impresses all those who share a stage with him. Captivates with a few notes those who hear him for the first time. In just a few months in Paris, this atypical saxophonist and his unusual nickname have become the talk of the town.
Where does he come from? PLUME didn’t try to seek fame before. Under this gentle and mysterious, birdlike and airy nickname, he was active in France and in the United States, living between New York and Paris, where he has now settled. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he rubbed shoulders there and later on stage at the fabled Wally’s Cafe with an entire generation of musicians: Christian Scott, Walter Smith III (author of the foreword of the album), Ambrose Akinmusire (featured on two tracks), Jason Palmer, Warren Wolf, Jaleel Shaw… All of whom speak highly of him and who are leading lights of jazz today. If all his former classmates have become key figures of contemporary jazz, PLUME has followed a more tortuous path, preferring the underground to glory, traveling back and forth across the Atlantic, and spending most of his time perfecting his musical craft, his technique and concepts.
PLUME is a shadowy presence in a city. His instrument slung over his shoulder, he is a samurai of the saxophone for whom the repetition of gestures is a kind of plenitude, for whom the articulation of a phrase must attain a kind of evidence, for whom the deployment of sound is a way of getting in touch with a spiritual resonance. PLUME chose jazz the way one enters into religion. Music is for him neither a pretext nor an artifice. It is a quest. An obsession. And it is perhaps a salvation.
PLUME reconnects with the fiercelessness of jazz that drives musicians to surpass themselves. His playing is inhabited by an unfeigned urgency. No demonstrations, no stylistic exercises. He plays like the person he is, with determination and concentration. Leading a close-knit quartet, he seeks the light; not in order to shine but in order to breathe. Things are serious now. PLUME brings the mystique back to the very heart of jazz.
Jacky Terrasson
the most widely travelled of all jazz pianists, is the “piano player of happiness”, according to Telerama magazine in France. He is an exhilarating musician, one of those who play their public straight to euphoria.
Born in Berlin, of an American mother and a French father, he grew up in France, in Paris. He started to learn the piano when was 5 and after studying classical piano in school, he began to study jazz, in particular with Jeff Gardner. His encounter with Francis Paudras (whose movie, “Round Midnight”, tells the moving story of a lasting friendship with Bud Powell) will be an important part of his initiation in jazz. Jacky then leaves for the United States to attend the Berklee College of Music. In 1993, after he wins the prestigious Thelonius Monk Award, he begins touring with Betty Carter. He then decides to move to New York, where he still lives today.
Exactly one year after his triumph in the Thelonius Monk competition, Jacky Terrasson was introduced in the New York Times Magazine as one of the 30 under 30, that is to say one of the 30 artists most likely to change American culture in the next 30 years, and signed with the prestigious Blue Note label.
He made three first trio recordings for Blue Note (Jacky Terrasson, Reach, and Alive). He then devoted himself to several collaborations: “Rendezvous”, with Cassandra Wilson, and “What it is”, with Michael Brecker and Mino Cinelu. Beginning in 2001, he records “A Paris” for Blue Note, a very personal interpretation of classics of French song; “Smile”, (winning him Best Jazz Album of the Year, 2003 Victoires du Jazz and a Gold Django), and finally a solo album, “Mirror”.
This Franco-American national has never stopped dazzling us, either by his prestigious collaborations, with greats such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves, Jimmy Scott, Charles Aznavour, Ry Cooder… or with his minimalist and energetic music hammered out with drummer Leon Parker and bassist Ugonna Okegwo, in a trio that was considered one of the best jazz trios of the 90s. And this intuition, this instinct, this openness, leads him to the discovery of the great burgeoning talents of his many groups (talents such as those of Eric Harland, Ben Williams, Jamire Williams, and Justin Faulkner).
In February 2012, Jacky Terrasson signed with Universal Jazz France. His first recording, “Gouache”, will appear in Fall 2012, and it is a joyous celebration of his 20-year career. In this recording, he is surrounded by the pride of the upcoming New York jazz generation, but also by Michel Portal, Stéphane Belmondo, Minino Garay, and singer Cecile McLorin-Salvant.
He performs regularly in solo and in trio in the great jazz festivals (Montreal, San Francisco, Montreux, North Sea Jazz, Marciac); and in the most prestigious Piano festivals (Klavier Ruhr Festival, Lucerne, La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins). He also plays regularly in Asia, mostly in Japan, South Korea and in China, in Europe and the United States.
If we were to describe his playing, we would compare Jacky Terrasson to Bud Powell for his carefully controlled velocity on the piano keys, to Ahmad Jamal for his sense of phrasing, but also for his knowledge of the great French composers savants, such as Ravel, Fauré and Debussy. Through his fingers, as he mingles and melts the colors and the inventions of the great pianists of yesterday and today, Jacky creates his own style, all in subtleties, freshness, facility and ease, with the desire to rewrite and reinvent, again, every day and forever.
In 2015, Jacky Terrasson signed with the prestigious label Impulse! and released “Take This”. He is also the musical Ambassador for Krug’s Champaign and will tour worldwide for an unique journey and experience that pairs Musi and Champaign.
In 2016, Jacky releases “Mother” on Impulse! with his long-time partner and friend, the trumpet player Stephane Belmondo.
In 2019, Jacky releases “53” on the mythical label Blue Note, a trio album, his favorite format.
