Baptiste Trotignon

Baptiste Trotignon will make his return in 2019 with a new album and probably his more intimate "You’ve changed" (to be released in November 19). This project leaves a large place to piano solo but also to an incredible series of duets with guests such as Joe Lovano, Avishai Cohen, Ibrahim Maalouf, Thomas de Pourquery, Vincent Segal and Camélia Jordana.

Because "hitting" as percussion, as the primary driving force of sound, the fundamental element of so many musical forms, their organic element and life source, has always been at the centre of most types of Afro-American music and all those derived from it. And because my love for melody, which has always made me want to make the piano sing and use it as a cantabile instrument, has never completely taken me away me from the pleasure of physically hitting the keys, with all its instinctive, earthly connotations.

For improvising musicians, the duo is the most intimate of set-ups. Two musicians, alone together, reaching out and responding to the other in the moment, create a glorious frisson. In the right hands, the result is honest and revelatory music. This album was co-directed by two artists who blended their styles to offer dusky and dreamy music, mainly composed of ballads, except for a short final wild samba evoking Sao Paulo nights.

At first impression, post-bop pianist/composer Baptiste Trotignon looks like a newcomer to the jazz scene, though he has recorded a number of CD since the mid-'90s as a leader on the Naive label. He will likely benefit from the wider distribution of his Sunnyside debut, which features Trotignon playing 11 originals with various lineups. A gifted pianist who shows lots of promise, Trotignon's works hold up well to repeated hearings, engaging his rhythm section and telling a story in the process, highlighted by the catchy "Mon Ange," and the wild uptempo blues "Red Light District."