Les Crimes Du Musette

Description

The adventure of this group, truly unlike any other, began in 1986 with the meeting between Dominique Cravic and Robert Crumb, the underground comic-book artist, whom people in France know mainly thanks to his drawings published ten years earlier in the libertarian monthly Actuel. Les Primitifs du Futur, with their slightly offbeat music and their name that seems borrowed from a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, have almost broken into the musical landscape by stealth. The group has long been a variable-geometry orchestra, with Dominique Cravic still at the helm. If the musette of the early days very quickly took joyful detours into blues and gypsy jazz, the music has never stopped evolving, successively incorporating touches of typical and tropical aesthetics such as biguine, echoes of ballroom dances like the waltz, or influences from 1930s Maghreb folk. Les Primitifs play with styles and disregard temporal barriers. The approach continues with this new album, Les Crimes du musette, a title that refers to the mixed reserve and condescension that many still express toward that famous genre, which supposedly is not as noble as bebop, free, rockabilly, chanson or even rock. In this jubilant opus, the repertoire still draws from new sources. One track evokes Chet Baker, another is a salute to Henri Salvador, not to mention a tribute to the piano bars of grand hotels and a piece in the form of an African postcard. Note two delicious adaptations, in French s'il vous plaît: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, which brings Django Reinhardt to mind, and Take Five by Paul Desmond, inspired by Richard Anthony’s French version, as well as two songs with lyrics written by the new Académie des beaux-arts member Emmanuel Guibert. Several threads run through these “Crimes,” which are listened to like a series of small luminous pastels. First, a scent of eternity, with this elegant way of making all these musics from the past feel so current, and whose combination defies labels. There are also those wanderings through Paris that Patrick Modiano would not disown, passing through the Jardin des Plantes, the banks of the Seine, Luxembourg, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Porte d’Orléans, with stops in bistros with checkered tablecloths or a Chinese restaurant in Belleville, and as a bonus a trip over to Chatou... Then, a definitive restoration of the accordion to the place it deserves, thanks to a lineup of virtuosos from different worlds: Raúl Barboza, Daniel Mille, Daniel Colin, Grégory Veux, Christophe Lampidecchia, Francis Varis, and Seppe Vande Walle: all contribute to restoring the instrument’s letters of nobility. Les Crimes du musette is also a gold mine for scholars, a true treasure hunt where, among authors, composers and inspirations, one can find, in addition to the great names already mentioned, Pierre Barouh and Allain Leprest, Juliette Gréco and François Truffaut, Jerome Kern and Tino Rossi, Paul Verlaine and Gino Bordin, Christophe and Joséphine Baker, Johnny Mercer and Ernst Lubitsch, Sanseverino and Alain Jean-Marie, Vincent Segal, JeanJacques Milteau, Fats Waller and Gunther Schuller, Glenn Miller... The same goes for the instruments: bendir, clavietta, marimba, musical saw, àn bau, Hawaiian guitar, theremin, ukulele, sanshin, woodblock and castanets, all contribute to the success of this record, synonymous with lost and found happiness. “The young ones have the fire, but the old ones have the light,” smiles Dominique Cravic, quoting a customer from the bar Le bon coin, in his hometown of Dreux. He clarifies his meaning: “It’s an album by old guys, and we own it. Colin, Barboza, Milteau, Huck, Crumb, me, we’ve all passed 70.” --- Pascal Bussy ---