French iconic pianist and composer Baptiste Trotignon makes his return to the jazz trio sound, with an album dedicated to British pop. From the Beatles to Radiohead, Queen to the Rolling Stones, Baptiste Trotignon demonstrates his talents for arrangements by transforming the greatest melodies from a legendary repertoire; supported by Matt Penman on double bass and Greg Hutchinson on drums.

“BREXIT MUSIC is not a political album. But it holds in its title—which came to me long after the idea of the repertoire, an ultimately quite British taste for derision: in the end, art shall survive all social fads. I wanted a fresh, playful sound, groove, and a bit of humor. Both playful and well executed. The intense presence of Matt and Greg is a big part of it. Covering a popular song is common practice for jazz musicians, and like many others before me, I have often done it. Still, the idea of an entire album revolving exclusively around British pop music was not self-evident: it was a challenge to remain lively and "fun" without the lyrics. So I was left with the often simplistic material of these songs, even if most of them have been an exciting and joyful part of my teenage years.

And then, little by little, by digging mainly into the incredibly creative era of the 70s, I started to have fun, sometimes arranging the melodies with the language I am most familiar with and sometimes playing them as they are. The simple sound of the piano/double bass/drums acoustic jazz trio created the surprise. Jazz and pop musicians are often considered rivals. And yet, in both worlds, you can hear the same sublime violence and thirst for freedom. Jazz was a popular and revolutionary music long before the arrival of rock's exuberance. Its animality (which I love!) contrasted with jazz and its complex harmonies and rhythms. Why not try to combine the two? While keeping in mind that this form of loving and poetic resistance is common to ALL genres.” (Baptiste Trotignon, May 2023)

Closing the distance between classical music and Broadway, between the old world and the new, this album is born out of a stunning encounter between two performers. Kate Lindsey is an opera star whose career is skyrocketing. She has stunned audiences with her performances of Mozart and Purcell, but grew up steeped in the music of Broadway, from Gershwin to Cole Porter. Baptiste Trotignon is a multie award-winning jazz pianist who plays with big names like Brad Mehldau or Tom Harrell, but who has a long-held interest in classical music, even composing a piano concerto for Nicholas Angelich. Together, they have produced a rich and varied programme around the songs of Kurt Weill, from Nanna's Lied to trouble Man, as well as the classics from The Threepenny Opera and Lost in the Stars. This journey through three European languages brings the listener to the very beginnings of jazz, and features all-new arrangements and deft improvisations by pianist Baptiste Trotignon. Lindsey and Trotignon also pay homage to three composers who, like Weill, all emigrated to the United States: Alma Mahler, Zemlinsky and Korngold. London-based American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey joins Alpha Classics for several recordings over the coming years.

Following a large number of multi-award-winning jazz albums, in solo, trio and quintet, Baptiste Trotignon now turns to songs in two ways: either by taking over some French classic songs, mostly in solo (Brel, Barbara, Gainsbourg...) or by composing and interpreting them with guest artists. Song Song Song is Trotignon's vision of the universal art of song and features guests artists from several universes, influences and cultures: Melody Gardot (performing, in French, Mon fantome), Monica Passos, Jeanne Added, Christophe Miossec...

As is often the case in music, this album came about following a meeting of musicians. I was already familiar with Yosvany's music but we had never met. So when he called me in 2014 I was immediately enthused by the thought of sharing our cultures and history to produce a new musical blend full of meaning and reflecting our desire to create. Combining our strengths, our desires, and even our weaknesses (it is these that, I believe, add a touch of fragility and sensitivity to the emotions we try to get across) brought us a lot of satisfaction when we were looking into putting a repertoire together. We delved into the musical traditions of former French colonies (Haiti, Cuba, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, etc.) and tried to figure out how to integrate this material into a jazz quartet, something which is very popular at the moment. Learning has always been a driving force in my journey as an artist and I have always considered myself an eternal student, more so than a simple teller of temporary truths. This research came more naturally to Yosvany who was born and grew up in Cuba, a country which offers a wealth of ancestral traditions. As well as playing North American jazz wonderfully well, his work, whether in his playing or his composing, is also infused with "classic" European music, considered intellectual music, so our meeting was stimulating to say the least. The term intellectual as we would normally understand it is rather odd since the rhythms of African cultures and the thousands of songs inspired by them around the world are infinitely more sophisticated than most European music!

During the long era when Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were creating the musical canon of Western Europe, the songs of enslaved Africans resounded in the colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, expressing pain and longing, but also joy and the desire for freedom. The American countertenor Reginald Mobley - a rising figure in baroque music, notably under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner with whom he sings very regularly - and the French pianist Baptiste Trotignon, winner of numerous awards (Victoires du Jazz, Django d'Or) have combined their talents and sensibilities to celebrate these spirituals and the music of Black composers including Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) and Florence Price (1887-1953), whose beautiful transcriptions and melodies blend with Baptiste Trotignon's subtle arrangements of the famous Sometimes I feel like a motherless child or I got a robe... The melody "Because", composed by Florence Price on a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, inspired the title of the album: Because I had loved so hard (...) Because I had loved so vainly... Why this album? Because...

CONTENTS:

• anon.: Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
• trad.: Were you there?
• trad.: I Got a Robe
• Trotignon: Why
• Price, Florence: Because
• trad.: Steal away
• trad.: Save Me Lord, Save Me
• trad.: Bright Sparkles in the Churchyard
• trad.: Nobody knows the trouble I seen
• Price, Florence: Resignation
• anon.: A Great Campmeetin'
• Price, Florence: Sunset
• trad.: My Lord, What a Mornin'
• anon.: By an’ by / There is a Balm in Gilead
• Barrett Strong, Norman Whitfield: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
• anon.: Deep river

REVIEWS:

On their new album Because, American countertenor and early-music specialist Reginald Mobley and French pianist Baptiste Trotignon offer a collection of music from the Renaissance.

No, not that Renaissance.

The album is an updated compendium of Negro spirituals...and art songs published, collected, or written in and around the Harlem Renaissance — a period of revival in Black art, literature, culture, and music that spread from the Manhattan neighborhood throughout the United States and the Western world in the early 20th century...this movement and these songs have impacted American music on a scale that is unsurpassed, from jazz to pop to hip-hop, as well as a significant body of classical repertoire.

With Because, his first solo album, [Mobley] offers a powerful portrait addressing the musical legacy of Black spirituals and the complicated paradoxes contained within them: themes of bondage and salvation, power and tenderness, pain and beauty, spirituality and temporality.

We rarely hear a countertenor wade into this repertoire, and Mobley’s voice, which seems to get better by the year, is wonderfully pristine. Like good champagne, his tone is both effervescent and rich. In 20th-century art songs such as Florence Price’s “Because I Had Loved So Deeply” or Harry Burleigh’s “Jean,” or traditional spirituals like “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” he does not produce sound so much as spin it in long, sumptuous phrases.

As an accompanist and arranger, Trotignon is both resourceful and inventive, and it’s clear that he also lives and breathes this music.

-- Early Music America