Charmediterranéen

First ECM album by the French big band celebrated as an important institution in contemporary jazz. ONJ projects have stressed both the strength of French improvising and the potential for collaboration with musicians of other backgrounds and cultures.

Since 2000 the musical director has been the Italian cellist/composer Paolo Damiani, who has previously appeared on ECM’s recording of the Italian Instabile Orchestra. For Charmediterranéen (“Mediterranean Spell”), the orchestra is joined by two artists familiar to ECM listeners: Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem, and Italian reedman Gianluigi Trovesi. The ONJ operates a revolving leadership policy, with a new director elected every three years. 

Sequenze Orfiche
Estramadure
Montbéliard (Trio)
Artefact
Argentiera (tutti)
Charmediterranéen
Argentiera (Trio)

"If it's big-band jazz looking squarely into the future you're after, the French Orchestre National de Jazz has just put out an epic, freewheeling work called Charmediterranéen. Conceived by its director, Paolo Damiani, the work draws on music from around the shores of the Mediterranean. So Latin fire, the ghost of Monteverdi and the Arab oud all play their part. The forces of globalism being what they are, there's also a guitarist who sounds like Bill Frisell. The orchestra is one of those innovative continental units, like the Vienna Art Orchestra and the Willem Breuker Kollektief, happy to mix and match traditions. There are fusion riffs, moments of great delicacy and high-volume energy (this is the region of the sirocco and mistral after all) in a 75-minute suite."
The Times
John Bungey

"France's national jazz orchestra is a unique and admirably inclusive institution. Its membership is constantly changing, each season finds a new musical director at the helm, and there are always a few non-French musicians taking part as guest artists. This is last year's edition, playing a programme reflecting the diverse musical styles to be heard around the Mediterranean. The two guest soloists are Italian saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi and Anouar Brahem, Tunisian master of the oud, a kind of lute. This may all sound a bit ominous but give it a chance because the music itself is utterly charming. At one moment the textures are warm and seductive, and a few minutes later the whole thing sounds like a New Orleans marching band on a spree."
The Observer
Dave Gelly

"Happy to say that Damiani's stint in front of this French institution is a lively and enterprising one. This CD contains a number of compositions, three of them in suite form. ... The Orchestre's execution is superb. Jeanneau's work is more redolent with what may be termed European classicist elements but the rhythms remain propulsive, even with violinist Huby soloing. Brahem's two-part "Artefact" has more Near-Eastern aura, as does Damiani's title piece, a work connecting some of the crosscurrents of the countries which share that sea as a common shore. An impressive outing for Damiani and his colleagues and one which underlines the amount of fresh territory that is still on offer to adventurous big bands, government funded or not."
Jazzwise
Keith Shadwick

"In stark verjüngter Besetzung, unter der Leitung des italienischen Cellisten Paolo Damiani und unter Beizug der Gastsolisten und -komponisten Gianluigi Trovesi und Anouar Brahem ist der Formation nun mit Charmediterranéen ein Album geglückt, das man nicht so schnell vergisst: Ein mal ausgelassenes, mal zorniges Manifest wider die allenthalben grassierende Einfaltspinselei, ein Taumel der Gefühle, der einen mitreisst. Diese passionierte Musik hat weder Angst vor dem Chaos noch vor der Kraft und Schönheit sehnsuchtsvoller Melodien."
Der Bund
Tom Steiger

"Das Wortspiel im Titel weist schon darauf hin: Es geht um den ganz besonderen Charme des Mittelmeers. Das Orchestre National De Jazz - ein Unikat in der internationalen Szene, weil es vom französischen Staat unterhalten wird - hat sich dabei zweier Starsolisten von beiden Seiten dieses Gewässers bedient. Gianluigi Trovesi aus Italien an Klarinette und Altsaxofon, besonders aber der tunesische Oud-Virtuose Anouar Brahem bereichern die CD ungemein und steuern auch eigene Stücke bei. Trovesis "Sequenze Orfiche" bedient sich bei einem Motiv aus Monteverdis Oper "Orfeo", um sodann auch ungestüme großorchestrale Free-Passagen zu durchschiffen, Brahems "Artefact" klingt dagegen arabisch. Weitere Epen aus der Feder von Francois Jeanneau und Paolo Damiani, des ehemaligen und des jetzigen ONJ-Leiters, verdeutlichen den Klangfarbenreichtum dieser 14-köpfigen Big Band. Vor allem der Hang zum Saiteninstrument ist reizvoll: Neben der Oud kommen Geige, Cello, Gitarre und Bass zum Einsatz."
Jazzthing
Rolf Thomas

"Unter der Leitung des italienischen Cellisten Paolo Damiani widmet sich das unkonventionell instrumentierte Orchestre National de Jazz feinsinnig den Werken seiner Gäste Gianluigi Trovesi und Anouar Brahem. Souverän jonglieren die famosen Franzosen mit Trovesis entzückender Monteverdi-Variation "L'Orfeo" und huldigen bei "Estremadura" ihrem Spiritus Rector François Jeanneau. Als Bonbon reichen Damiani & Co. noch einige kleinteilig besetzte, intime Preziosen."
Stereoplay
Sven Thielmann

What do I hear, what do I see? A journey undertaken without preconceptions during which I find images of spell, of incantation, something that leads us to another place, we don’t know where. So, the meaning of the music is really no different from a spell, to send us to another place that we could never find by looking for it, because it is always moving. In the rapidity of that movement there is something of the “instantaneous reasoning, without transitions” intuitively perceived by Italo Calvino, which has always seemed to me a good description of the art of improvisation.

In a single sentence, then, I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I know how to recognize the marvellously unexpected when I come across it. We might say that what moves us is also unspoken, a moment of tenderness, a passing coincidence, a successful listening, a ‘fuite en avant’, the sort of vision that the fierce and constant exercise of the imagination makes possible, exemplified in the poetic meeting between the orchestra and the magnificent images presented by Roberto Masotti; an idealized score projected on a screen.

When imagination runs out on the other hand, among artists as among political or cultural managers, the language becomes repetitive and stereotyped, debouching on codified rules that exclude novelty in favour of imitation and servitude.

Triumphant in our time is what Stefano Benni has called the “disclosure swindle, the videocentric thought that flinches from complexity and contradiction, thought that is meagre instead of varied, that aims for repetition and not discovery… resistance is only possible by withdrawing and opposing; failure to resist amounts to total complicity”. The only thing left to do is respond with the “militant generosity that sets in with time” often mentioned by Armand Meignan, with the imaginative gesture needed to break the silence, so that the journey can recommence…

Paolo Damiani