The charismatic French clarinetist Louis Sclavis celebrates his 70th anniversary with an extended tour of his quartet “Characters on a Wall” in Finland and the Baltic Countries . This 13th album of Sclavis on ECM finds him drawing inspiration from two primary sources: the interventionist street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest and the interpretive brilliance of his quartet featuring Benjamin Moussay on piano, Sarah Murcia on double bass and Christophe Lavergne on drums. The tour starts in Helsinki on October 2nd and ends at the Vilnius Jazz Festival on October 15th. In between the band performs three more concerts in Finland, four in Estonia and three in Latvia.
Characters On A Wall marks, surprisingly, the first time that Sclavis has deployed the classic jazz line-up of reeds, piano, bass and drums on an ECM record. “This instrumental formation is one I hadn’t used for a long time,” says Louis. “It still feels new to me, and the band feels like a real jazz group – in its make-up, sonorities and sense of interplay.” The canonical format seems a good fit with the subject matter, given Pignon-Ernest’s position as a classicist among the street artists, balancing technical control and compositional elegance with a flair for subtle colouration and emotional drama.
The Village Voice once called Louis Sclavis “the most consistently impressive bass clarinettist since Eric Dolphy” but, as he has proven many times, his real instrument is the ensemble. He knows how to make his groups sing. Each of his bands has had a very distinct character, utilised by Sclavis to address a wide range of subject matter. “Sclavis keeps renewing and reinventing himself,” Stéphane Ollivier remarks in the liner notes. “The clarinettist expands his universe ever further at the limits of established genres and styles, into hybrid shifting territory where the learned and the popular, the ultra-contemporary and the traditional meet.”
Characters on a wall / ECM Records (2019)
About – Tracks – Press reactions – Background
https://ecmrecords.com/product/characters-on-a-wall-louis-sclavis/
Louis Sclavis, Benjamin Moussay, Sarah Murcia, Christophe Lavergne @ Luc Jennepin
Louis Sclavis clarinets
Benjamin Moussay piano
Sarah Murcia double bass
Christophe Lavergne drums
Tour program from October 2nd to 15th 2023
FINLAND kiertuetiedote suomeksi
Mon 02/10 Helsinki, G Livelab
Tue 03/10 Tampere, G Livelab
Wed 04/10 Oulu, RioLive/ Oulu Music Festival
Thu 05/10 Seinäjoki, Kalevan Navetta/ Jazzoikoon!
ESTONIA presented by Eesti Kontsert
Sat 07/10 Tallinn, Kumu museum auditorium
Sun 08/10 Jõhvi Concert Hall
Mon 09/10 Tartu, Vanemuise Concert Hall
Tue 10/10 Pärnu Concert Hall
LATVIA in cooperation with the French Institute of Latvia
Wed 11/10 Riga, VEF Culture Palace
Thu 12/10 Daugavpils, Unity House
Fri 13/10 Madona, Cultural House
LITHUANIA
Sun 15/10 Vilnius Jazz Festival
Tour production: Archipels – cie Dominique Pifarély
Tour booking – tour management: Vapaat äänet
Tour support: AJC, Adami, Spedidam
In partnership with Kumu drums
