Benoit Delbecq Circles And Calligrams (2015) HD

This solo piano album from French musician Benoît Delbecq offers a career summary while continuing to advance and refine his particular approach. Celebrated in France and named “one of the avatars of the prepared piano” by JazzTimes.com, his music requires an open mind toward sonic experimentation as well as an appreciation for formal complexity and a degree of abstraction. The title Circles and Calligrams refers to the visual patterns Delbecq sketches with pen and paper while writing new pieces, designs that help him visualize ways of superimposing forms and building up "fabrics" of various motifs.

French pianist Benoît Delbecq and Vancouver-based clarinetist François Houle team up on this 2011 release, their third collaboration, which showcases these two distinctive composer-performers whose work together has its own very particular synergy. It’s striking how serene yet playful much of the music feels, reflecting how two old friends went about reinventing their musical relationship for a few hours in the studio (and on a subsequent short tour) after a rather long hiatus.

The header on Delbecq’s website reads undocile jazz beats and more. Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of his music is the textured sound he makes with his prepared piano, changing its tone using dried wood and erasers and any other materials he can find and insert between the strings to alter the sound.

"Phonetics" from Paris-based pianist and composer Benoît Delbecq presents an artist at the height of his imaginative and synthesizing powers. Recorded with an international quintet and featuring prepared piano on several tracks, this album showcases Delbecq's broad and deep vision of music, burnished by the audiophile recording. Phonetics was named one of the 12 best records of 2004 ("Choc de l’année") by Jazzman, the leading jazz magazine in France.

Benoît Delbecq is a uniquely gifted French pianist who has created his own music using ideas and techniques from contemporary classical jazz, Pygmy polyphony and European improvisation. He prepares the piano with various materials such as eraser bits and carved wooden twigs and improvises on short, overlapping vamps and patterns; the result is a complex, spacious sound that hardly seems to be emanating from a single instrument. On "Nu-turn", his debut solo release from 2003, Delbecq stretches out on eight astonishingly structured improvisations; the final 11 minute composition is a computer-created ambient “remix” that completely transforms the material.

Phonetics from Paris-based pianist and composer Benoît Delbecq presents an artist at the height of his imaginative and synthesizing powers. Recorded with an international quintet and featuring prepared piano on several tracks, this album showcases Delbecq's broad and deep vision of music, burnished by the audiophile recording. Phonetics was named one of the 12 best records of 2004 ("Choc de l’année") by Jazzman, the leading jazz magazine in France.

This rare double-trio configuration is a ground-breaking encounter between jazz piano and the sonic resources of contemporary classical music, between American tradition and the European avant-garde, but above all between two fantastic pianists (coincidentally, both winners of the Grand Prix du Disque for jazz). Fred Hersch's quest for absolute beauty and impeccable virtuosity have become legendary. Benoît Delbecq is one of Europe's most prominent jazz keyboardists; his compositions and elegant, complex improvisations build on John Cage's prepared piano techniques.

The compositions presented on Pursuit by the 'Benoit Delbecq 5' often convey a sense of buoyancy or airiness which becomes outwardly evident from the onset with the opener titled, 'Strange Loop'. Here, the dual and we might add, distinguished woodwind section of clarinetist Francois Houle and clarinetist/saxophonist Michael Moore partake in brief choruses that float atop quiet and at times undulating rhythms and subliminal electronic EFX supplied by drummer Steve Arguelles. Longtime Steve Lacy associate Jean-Jacques Avenel completes the rhythm section as the band led by pianist Benoit Delbecq and his vastly interesting compositional approach suggests a potpourri of intersecting themes enhanced by the often brilliant soloing.

« A thoughtful chill runs through the music of Benoît Delbecq, a French pianist of investigative temperament and crystalline technique. There’s a ton of compressed energy in his playing, but he projects an unflappable calm ». These lines from the New York Times in 2010 by jazz critic Nate Chinen offer a pertinent description of Delbecq’s music. Delbecq is a multi-awarded Parisian pianist and composer, a type-setter who persists in developing his ideas among which a very rhythmic approach that brings the soul of jazz to John Cage’s prepared piano.

« A thoughtful chill runs through the music of Benoît Delbecq, a French pianist of investigative temperament and crystalline technique. There’s a ton of compressed energy in his playing, but he projects an unflappable calm ». These lines from the New York Times in 2010 by jazz critic Nate Chinen offer a pertinent description of Delbecq’s music. Delbecq is a multi-awarded Parisian pianist and composer, a type-setter who persists in developing his ideas among which a very rhythmic approach that brings the soul of jazz to John Cage’s prepared piano.