Martial Solal In Concert

 

Dermaplastic

The Martial Solal Trio In Concert

Cover Design: Studio Five

Liberty Records LRP-3335

1963

From the back cover: A decade ago – late in 1953 – there burst into international jazz a new pianist of startling talent, Martial Solal.

Solal is a young Algerian Frenchman, born in Algiers, August 23, 1927. His first recordings for the French label, Vogue, immediately establish him as a jazz entity to be taken with utmost seriousness. His style appeared to combine strong influences of Art Tatum (in the technical department) and Bud Powell (in his rhythmic and harmonic conceptions) but it was evident that he was no slavish imitator. Solal was his own man from his debut in the world-wide theatre of jazz expression. He is still his own man.

Solal, who began piano studies at seven, had become a convert to jazz via European radio when he was about 13 or 14. World War II was aflame at the time, and it is likely that it was BBC broadcasts from London which caught his attention, inasmuch as the Nazi-dominated Vichy regime, then governing France and French North Africa, can hardly be said to have been sympathetic to the broadcasting of such "degenerate" music. Whatever the source, Solal absorbed the jazz he listened to so avidly on the air and by 1945 was playing piano over Radio Algiers. His broadcasts continued after he had been drafted into the French Army and was posted to Rabat, Morocco. By 1949, when he was discharged, he had made up his mind. He must go to Paris. He did so in February 1950.

The three years that followed saw Solal fighting to become established in the French jazz community. He was to play his dues in four dance bands before finally attaining some celebrity as a featured solicit on a radio series called Jazz Varieties. Engagements followed at two Paris nightclubs where Solal shone as an outstanding soloist.

Shortly after his debut on record, Solal was featured at the Troisieme Salon International du Jazz in Paris during June 1954. Wrote British critic Mike Never: "Solal to my mind was the surprise of the concert. A young Frenchman not yet heard of in Britain, he is definitely one of the most promising pianists in Europe. He is not a copyist; he plays the articulate manner of Bud Powell – but he plays with dynamic dexterity. His phrasing is clean, balanced and forceful." French jazz critics concurred.

In Down Beat magazine, critic John A. Tynan has written of Solal's recorded work: "His two ideals of jazz piano are peerless – Art Tatum and Bud Powell – and if there be a reservation about his playing, it is the unconcealed homage he constantly pays both. Solal combines the blinding technique of Tatum with the boppish conception of Powell. The combination is most salutary... Solal is a major piano artist and an important jazz voice – on either side of the pond." Similarly, critic John S. Wilson commented in the same publication: "Known for his technical virtuosity, Solal has a superb touch and produces a magnificently pianist sound, Brilliant, warm and sonorous." In the same piece Wilson remarked on the pianist's "breath of view in structuring a performance." These characteristics, as well as his all-embracing scope, are quite evident in this album recored in concert at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, May 3, 1962.

For the event, Solal's idea was to present an entirely new program to Paris jazz world. He composed over a dozen new pieces for the two-hour recital. (Only one, Duke Jordan's Jordu, in this selection culled from the tapes of that concert, is non-solar, but even in this the treatment is characteristically individualistic. Solal's piano, for example, behind Guy Pederson's bass solo, does not merely comp, but injects little figures skittering high in the treble.).

Possible the most distinctive feature in terms of overall impact of the Solal trio's performance at this concert is the rhythmic breaking out tempos. In Dermaplastic, for instance, the tempos are most plastic, veering into one groove, now another, before finally settling into a comfortable, very swinging attitude.

Say Solal of this penchant  for rhythmic breaks and staggering of tempos. "I believe that the music of jazz needs architecture (of which it has been frequently deprived until recently) especially in terms of the small group. This architecture permits the creation of different music climates. For me this corresponds to a need, not a system. I want to say that because of that we change temp not in a systematic manner, bout only when the need makes itself felt, when the emotion that is our demands it."

Solal has a way with a ballad. For a revealing example listen to Aigue-Marine with its reflective, caressing summer-day feeling of gentle response. And in the waltz-time swinger, Averty, Crest Moi, note the pianists right hand taking off on a high table series of variation as he left stabs out divergent patterns in the bass. In Gavotte A Gaveau (Composed expressly for this concert) note the brilliant exchanged of ours with drummer Daniel Humair, a percussionist who drive and sympathetique is an integral element in this session. Similarly, bassist Pedersen displays an umbilical tie with Solal and Humair. 

Solal's talent has been summed up quite compactly in the magazine, Jazz Hot, by French critics Lionel Andre and Pierre Crescent: "Martial Solal is without doubt one of the most interesting musicians in Europe."

Actually, Solal is now recognized on both sides of the Atlantic in this new world of international jazz, thus, he can be healed as one of the latest vital links in French-American cultural relations.

Jordu

Nos Smoking

Special Club

Dermaplastic

Aigue-Marine

Averty, C'est Moi

Gavotte A Gaveau