Abrazo. Embrace. Sometimes tight dancing, sometimes hand-to-hand combat. Is there a better image for the duo of accordionist Vincent Peirani and soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien? "It's like a marriage," Peirani says. "In the beginning, everything is great, wonderful, a paradise. But then there are always crises, that's normal. And right now we just have a rip-roaring desire to play together." There are probably few musicians who know each other as well as Peirani and Parisien. The two have played more than 1000 concerts together in the last ten years, more than 600 of them as a duo. They got to know each other in 2012 in drummer Daniel Humair's quartet. On a tour of Korea, they then played, quite spontaneously, a first night club concert as a duo. According to Peirani, a "ca-ta-strophe! to-tal disastre!". But shortly thereafter, without jet lag and well prepared, it clicked at a French festival and probably one of the most extraordinary formations of European jazz was born.
Abrazo. Embrace. Sometimes tight dancing, sometimes hand-to-hand combat. Is there a better image for the duo of accordionist Vincent Peirani and soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien? "It's like a marriage," Peirani says. "In the beginning, everything is great, wonderful, a paradise. But then there are always crises, that's normal. And right now we just have a rip-roaring desire to play together." There are probably few musicians who know each other as well as Peirani and Parisien. The two have played more than 1000 concerts together in the last ten years, more than 600 of them as a duo. They got to know each other in 2012 in drummer Daniel Humair's quartet. On a tour of Korea, they then played, quite spontaneously, a first night club concert as a duo. According to Peirani, a "ca-ta-strophe! to-tal disastre!". But shortly thereafter, without jet lag and well prepared, it clicked at a French festival and probably one of the most extraordinary formations of European jazz was born. In 2014, the first joint duo album "Belle Epoque" was released on ACT. From then on, they quickly went on tour all over the world via the most important clubs and festivals in France and Germany - to Asia, Latin America, the USA, Canada and all over Europe. And to world-famous classical houses such as the philharmonic halls in Berlin, Hamburg, Essen or Vienna. International prizes such as the Echo Jazz, Les Victoires du Jazz, the German Record Critics' Award and numerous critics' awards from leading jazz magazines were not long in coming
"Belle Epoque," the duo's debut album, was a tribute to soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, one of the great stars of early 1920s jazz and a master of melody. Peirani and Parisien took nearly six years to write the follow-up. And "Abrazo" is also a bow, though not to a person, but to an art form: the tango, its elegance, melancholy and rhythmic and melodic power. And as in their duo debut, Peirani and Parisien do not play the material of the originals, they rather play WITH it
Pieces from the pens of South American masters such as Astor Piazzolla, Tomás Gubitsch or Xavier Cugat form only a part of the repertoire. Parisien's and Peirani's own compositions move in the spirit of the tango, as does the arrangement of "Army Dreamers" from the pen of Kate Bush, whom Peirani deeply admires. An amazing bridge to the previous album is built by the opening track "The Crave" by U.S. pianist and bandleader Jelly Roll Morton - one of the most influential jazz musicians of the early 20th century. It seems as if "Abrazo", after "Belle Epoque", is the second part of a suite and indeed the two albums, listened to one after the other, mesh amazingly
What connects all these different elements is the clearly audible, deep affinity of Peirani and Parisien, the resulting sensitivity in the interplay and their exceptional position as two of the currently most important innovators of their instruments. Something clicks here in an utterly magical way. And it seems as if the ingredients for this somnambulistic interplay could really come from anywhere: Whether traditional or modern jazz, free avant-garde, classical, folk, rock, electronic, new or early music - the hunger for new things, the desire for adventure seems insatiable. It is this boundless curiosity and the urge to grow together and climb ever new levels that weld the duo Peirani & Parisien together and make them so unique.
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