The Jazzcat

Click Pictue above to hear a live interview with Jean Michel Pilc and LeRoy Downs
Slide Show

This is the first night for what I can guarantee is going to

be one hell of a lot of music in a week for three humans to create. Chamber

Music America

and the Doris Duke Foundation have graciously commissioned a Trio Sonata that

will be performed during the second set that everyone is looking forward to. I

had an interview with the monster pianist Jean Michel Pilc last week prior to

this performance and the intellectualism behind the music is created in part by

an atmosphere of like-minded players along with the love for thought provoking,

creative sound.

Most people are afraid of monsters but this morphing, thirty

fingered, six armed mental sound producing machine doesn’t bite. It does swing

though, so watch out or you might become enthralled by its Giant Steps!  On the battlefield of Cerebellum, you will

find yourself in a chess match with the music. Checkmate! How did that happen?

Well, the music is an intoxicating splendor of floating kaleidoscopic

shapes, colors, patterns and phrases that you must listen to and concentrate

on. If you stare long enough, the painting appears before your eyes with the clue

that you have been looking for. You are so enamored by the Cirque de Soleil of

feats that you did not realize that the powers of the music have taken control

of all of your senses. You can feel, taste, hear, touch and smell the Monk,

Trane and Duke in the mix. The game has been played before you could make one

move.

Jean Michel Pilc and his trio of Ari Honig on drums and

Francois Moutin on bass played a five part suite that resembled the wonder and amazement

of a journey up, down, through and across the fabric, layers and texture of

landscapes less traveled. The natural elements of earth, the ocean’s current

and the dark lurking imagery that nightfall can bring upon one’s imagination.

One moment the chase is on and the next finds you focusing on the precipitation

of a rose in the early morning. The tender transitions have the musicians act

as characters stepping seamlessly out of one scene into four parts of another.

From Technicolor into sepia tones to black and white and back.

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Thelonious can do that, but listen to this cat! The Jean

Michel Pilc Trio!

LeRoy Downs