Cadijo Blues Compagnie - C'est Ainsi (2020)

A worthy representative of the vivacious Gascon scene (which also features Nico Wayne Toussaint, Jeff Zima, Raoul Ficel and Awek), Cadijo returns with one of those carefully distilled albums of which he has the secret. Always faithful to his land, one of the very best European harmonicists thus persists in celebrating his love of the blues and that of his vernacular language. As if François Béranger had tried his hand at the genre, the tasty mambo “Kinshasa Blues”, “Quelle Sale Journée”, “Tondre Le Gazon” and “Faut Pas Rêver” perpetuate the libertarian spirit that already ran through his “En Mop Dans Les Swamps” and “Les Chansons De Pierrot”. In the stylistic vein of the lazy swamp blues initiated by Jimmy Reed, Lightnin' Slim and Slim Harpo, the languid “J'T'Attendrai” undeniably imposes itself as one of the peaks of this disc. In terms of harmonica playing alone, this track could already serve as an anthology. In the same vein, “Elle Never Le Temps” and the zydeco “Y'A Pas Le Feu” join the verve of the great Benoît Blue Boy (initiatory apostle of the genre in the language of Voltaire). The titular track turns out to be the jubilant transposition into French of “That Ain't It” by Jimmy Rogers. The Chicago shuffle is having a field day, and in addition to Cadijo's ruined lips, his accomplices Baptiste Duperron on six strings and Fabrice Camelio (alias Hot Pepino) on 88 keys ride the rhythm with enthusiasm. Once not being custom, it is under the pen of his brother Michel that the poetic fiber of Jean-Pierre Carraro is expressed (true civil status of Cadijo, like Clark Kent for Superman), with the sensitive and touching “ The essential". The Blues, poetry and the harmonica take breathing for complicity. Like a salutary breath of oxygen, here is in a way the chiselled and relaxed album that Lazy Lester and Jean Ferrat could have recorded together, if they had had the luminous inspiration... ~Patrick Dlongville