Parisien

“The best new thing that has happened in European jazz for a long time” (Le Monde), Emile Parisien has formed a top-flight American-European sextet for this album, his seventh as leader or co-leader on ACT. The band will be touring in 2022, the year which also marks the tenth anniversary of Parisien’s first appearance on an ACT album.

French soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien is one of the most highly regarded European jazz musicians of our time. The three albums he made in just three years – “Belle Epoque” in 2014, “Spezial Snack” in 2015 and “Sfumato” in 2016 – have propelled him, at the age of just 35, to the top of the worldwide rankings on his instrument. One thing is abundantly clear: Europe has a new jazz star.

This story begins with just one sound, originating in the place which Berlin jazz people think of as their living room, the A-Trane. Back in December 2019, the club was host to four leading figures in today’s improvised music scene, who turned this cozy space into their blank canvas, their research lab. In eight sets over four nights, piano phenomenon Michael Wollny, re-inventor of the soprano saxophone Emile Parisien, electric bass icon Tim Lefebvre, and that free spirit of the drum kit Christian Lillinger were given free rein.