Paul Lay - Deep Rivers (2020) Hi Res

Paul Lay, a young French pianist, pays tribute to the music of American soldiers from the First World War: music that introduced jazz to France.

Jazz is the Africans who put the daoua in Western music and who regenerate it while it was in the process of becoming academic, notably by removing from its teaching the art of improvisation. The music which does not like being locked up then crosses the Atlantic and wakes up all jazz undressed by the grace of miserable slaves who were going to invent the greatest lesson of musical freedom.

Paul Lay, the pianist, Isabelle Sörling, the singer, Simon Tailleau the double bassist will give these compositions of the end of the 19th century, these airs of ragtime whistled by young soldiers all their essence, their spirituality, their depth, their lightness - there is all that in this music which connects the sky and the ground, Apollo and Dyonisos, God in the Gospel and the devil in the blues.