For eighteen years, they’ve been extending their musical adolescence – in first-in-class fashion – by having fun diverting the ‘classic texts’ that are jazz standards into so many games of hide-and-seek, of ‘right hand or left hand’, of disappearances-reappearances… Of reappropriation, to be sure. Claude Nougaro used to call it recreation, a happy double entendre to remind us that it is first and foremost a game. The boppers had turned it into a learned art of composition, climbing the melodies of musicals by the harmonic side.
True to their now historic residency at Le Baiser Salé (since 2008!), Mario Canonge and Michel Zenino plunge into songs from the 1930s and 40s, for the most part, before bringing them to the surface here and now. In their fingers, almost a century of jazz; in their ears, that ability to listen to each other that makes great duos. Not just for the art of conversation – they have a tightrope-walking side to them, dancing together on the edge – but for the ‘board game’ they propose, the series of riddles to be deciphered. It takes years of back-and-forth exchanges to get up to the net together, as they do on Night in Tunisia or Jitterburg-Waltz, The Preacher or Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams. The rest is up to you.
Alex Dutilh
Technical details
Year: 2024
Label / Reference : Aztec Musique / CM5042
Musicians: Mario Canonge (pno) & Michel Zenino (b)
Tracks: 01- Zénitude – 04:32 / 02- Mistral Perdant – 05:03 / 03- Bay Lé – 05:03 / 04- Like A Dream – 06:39 / 05- Bonimenteur – 04:04 / 06- Gigolette – 04:02 / 07- Is He In Tune At Night? – 03-35 / 08- L’Awalee – 02:16 / 09- To The Moon And Back – 03:45 / 10- Huvaune Brillant – 03:37 / 11- Same For Me – 04:52 / 12- Pas Racati – 02:17
Paraphrases is available online, including BandCamp.
