Clement Janinet, Bruno Ducret, Elodie Pasquier - Woodlands (2023) Hi Res

The collaboration between Clément Janinet, the most renowned French jazz violinist of his generation and BMC Records started a few years ago. In September 2022, his quartet O.U.R.S. (Ornette Under the Repetitive Skies) released an album that has since gone on to win top critical acclaim in French jazz magazines, and a new album by Janinet's world music-influenced band, Space Galvachers is about to be released.

The trio, La Litanie des Cimes was included in the French Jazz Migration programme, which has helped them play dozens of concerts in France and abroad during 2021/22. This year, they were selected to perform at the Jazzahead! showcase in Bremen, with a resounding professional and public success. Their first recording has previously won the highest ratings from Télérama, Jazz Magazine and Citizen Jazz.

Janinet's wide range of interests is also evident on this album: the music of Woodlands is infiltrated by American minimal music and blues, as well as the voices of African griots and French folk. La Litanie des Cimes plays chamber jazz on acoustic instruments familiar from classical music. Janinet is joined by Élodie Pasquier on clarinet, who combines stage experience with infinite sophistication, and Bruno Ducret on cello, whose activities cover a wide range of genres. The poetry of their intimate music, rich in emotional surges and changes of dynamics, does not prevent Ducret from adding shades of metal to the sound: in the forest of La Litanie des Cimes, sometimes a gentle breeze rustles the leaves, sometimes a hurricane shakes the landscape and twists the trees.