Backed by 3 of the most demanded musicians from the Paris Jazz scene (Laurent Epstein, piano / Yoni Zelnik, bass / David Georgelet, drums), French guitarist, singer and composer Didier Verna just released his new album as a leader: Roots and Leaves.
Excerpt from the booklet: “Roots and Leaves... Roots are our foundation, our basis, our legacy and our culture. They are our link to the Earth, the anchor point, solid, static and invisible, on top of which we build ourselves. Leaves are the multiple, blooming facets of our personality, our character and our uniqueness They are our link to the Sky, the point of release, fragile, ephemeral and agitated through which we express ourselves”.
With this new opus from the @-quartet, Didier Verna continues to explore the founding idea of this formation and its music: how, depending on our cultural legacy, does the personality of a musician flourish? How, from a collective heritage, does his or her artistic individuality build itself and evolve?
As with the first album, these eleven brand new original compositions continue to offer a wide yet coherent variety of styles, of multiple influences. At the same time, the compositions here can be perceived as more asserted, more aggressive, more “self-proclaimed”. Finally, this time, the diversity of styles goes hand in hand with an obvious widening of the sound palette, something that was less developed in the first opus. On top of a traditional rhythm section, four different guitars, among which a fretless one, were used, also including guitar-synthesizer techniques. Didier Verna is hereby paying tribute to the “pioneers of sound” that affected his musical path, starting with the musicians of Uzeb, Michael Brecker and his EWI, Pat Metheny and his GR-300, John McLaughlin, and all those who saw beyond the natural abilities of their respective instruments...
Excerpt from the booklet: “Roots and Leaves... Roots are our foundation, our basis, our legacy and our culture. They are our link to the Earth, the anchor point, solid, static and invisible, on top of which we build ourselves. Leaves are the multiple, blooming facets of our personality, our character and our uniqueness They are our link to the Sky, the point of release, fragile, ephemeral and agitated through which we express ourselves”.
With this new opus from the @-quartet, Didier Verna continues to explore the founding idea of this formation and its music: how, depending on our cultural legacy, does the personality of a musician flourish? How, from a collective heritage, does his or her artistic individuality build itself and evolve?
As with the first album, these eleven brand new original compositions continue to offer a wide yet coherent variety of styles, of multiple influences. At the same time, the compositions here can be perceived as more asserted, more aggressive, more “self-proclaimed”. Finally, this time, the diversity of styles goes hand in hand with an obvious widening of the sound palette, something that was less developed in the first opus. On top of a traditional rhythm section, four different guitars, among which a fretless one, were used, also including guitar-synthesizer techniques. Didier Verna is hereby paying tribute to the “pioneers of sound” that affected his musical path, starting with the musicians of Uzeb, Michael Brecker and his EWI, Pat Metheny and his GR-300, John McLaughlin, and all those who saw beyond the natural abilities of their respective instruments...
