With Carla

Description

Becoming attached to the music of Carla Bley is never trivial — all the more so for an institution such as the Orchestre National de Jazz — because, throughout her life, this artist took a stand against academicism and conformism, whether regarding her musical output, the trajectory of her career, or her communication. Engaging with her scores therefore means for our large ensemble administering such an antidote, along with a healthy dose of vitamins. Whimsical, atypical, masterful, often funny, sometimes irreverent, profound, Carla Bley's work also prompts a transcendence of opposites. Not hermetic, never vulgar, she nonetheless developed her noble rot (necessary for certain of the finest wines) by frequenting both written music and so-called "popular" music, as a result of which she continues to captivate a wide audience. By celebrating this immense artist who passed away in 2023, Sylvaine Hélary's ONJ seizes this torch and holds it high because it respects both the letter and the spirit of Carla Bley. Instead of cautious rewrites, Rémi Sciuto's arrangements and compositions in echo are indeed about extension. The tracks presented here thus resemble augmentations in which a dual presence of the composer manifests itself. That of the past, first, through the textual summoning of her compositions, for the pure pleasure of (re)hearing them as much as to salute the importance of an artistic creation that goes beyond the boundaries of the jazz field. Carla Bley in the present, then, whose music carries a provocative relevance; "provocative" in the sense of "triggering," a spark that set fire to the imagination/imaginary of Rémi Sciuto, ever more affirming his jazz signature; but "provocative" also as an incitement to action, a challenge for a surpassing or even a transgression of established norms, this being in no way superficial. Indeed, as Leonard B. Meyer showed in his work Emotion and Meaning in Music, emotion in music arises from expectations that are thwarted, delayed, displaced. It is by disrupting the usual expectations attached to a style, a genre — that is, an art of musical enigma — that emotion occurs, precisely because the listener is able to measure the distance between the norm and the non-norm.