Fidel Fourneyron - OKO (2024)

Oko is the orisha invoked by the Yoruba to ask for prodigality, abundance and fertility.

Fidel Fourneyron has chosen the study of the Yoruba pantheon (whose vibrancy in the Afro-acraibbean diaspora is the source of incredible musical creativity) as the focus for feeding his imagination and continuing to develop the aesthetic of a return to the roots of jazz. Born of the encounter between the melodic and rhythmic traditions wrested from Africa and the harmonic language of Europe, jazz, for Fidel Fourneyron, draws its essential strength from its African roots.

The idea of this new trio is to continue in a small group the work begun in a large ensemble with Que Vola, then Bengue: music that takes melody and its rhythmic underpinnings as the starting point for collective play. In this pared-down trio, with no polyphonic instruments, everything is based on the encounter between the drums and the singing. While allowing themselves harmonic and formal perspectives drawn from contemporary European music, it is by digging into the earth that the group draws its strength.

Telluric instruments par excellence, Antoine Paganotti's drums and Thibaud Soulas's double bass are the foundations of Oko's music, over which Fidel Fourneyron's warm trombone breath hovers.