Didier Dumotier

The album "Live" can be regarded as a 'best of' with tracks from the albums Downwind, Gazeuse and Espresso II (1978), amongst others. Bassist Hansford Rowe snorts and frets with all his might, guitarist Bon Lozaga has clearly found his proper place in the band, brother Benoit Moerlen mistreats the vibraphone as if Sunday will never come, new boy Francois Causse hits everything he can get his hands on, while chief Pierre keeps pushing the music with his excellent drumming. When Mike Oldfield and Didier Malherbe join the party in opener Downwind in order to play extended soli, the fun reaches new heights.

Among modern recordings of the opera, this one is a safe bet, assuming you want a safe version of this opera. Unlike Herbert von Karajan's oppressively string-heavy reading with the Berlin Philharmonic on EMI, this is a balanced, idiomatic account of the score, given a special luster by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's coloristic instincts and the warm recording acoustic at St. Eustache Church. Conductor Charles Dutoit has a fine instinctive feel for Debussy in general and this score in particular. The singers in the title roles–Didier Henry and Colette Alloit-Lugaz–have both come to terms with the opera's enigmatic dramaturgy. However, it's very much a symphonic rather than operatic performance, clearly a product of the recording studio rather than of the stage.

Christian Escoudé is born in 1947. His father, gypsy and guitarist, plays in the popular dances of the region. His father has boundless passion for Django Reinhardt that he passes on to his son and introduces him to the guitar at the age 10. Five year later Christian begins a musician's career. Christian Escoudé is part of a small jazz guitarist's familly coming out from the Manouche circle: Thus, he built up his own guitar style, a mix of be-bop approach widely tinged with Tzigane influence…

Joël Grare, percussionist and tireless seeker after offbeat sounds and instruments, here presents his third album for Alpha: ‘Footprints beneath the snow: first sounds of innocence, cowbells and jingle-bells, sounds swallowed up by the mountain’… Through his compositions and inspirational influences (Debussy, Bartók) he follows a dizzying emotional Alpine path, along with his amazing instruments: drums, balafon, melodica, sanza, cowbells of all sizes, Japanese drums, trompiki, rainstick, thunder sheet – and his famous ‘clavicloche’

The beautiful Persian etymology of the word "Caravan" goes back to the d awn of time, embracing the ideas of nomadic travel and of mutual aid. Drawing on this unforgettable poetry and inspired by the legendary song of the same name by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington, Caravan Party invokes friendship through music, the miracle of which is always present at the Bal Blomet, one of the oldest jazz clubs in Europe.