Here are a couple releases from Effendi Records, a label focusing on the future sounds of jazz. Some artists you may not be familiar with this side of the Canadian border are featured here.
Pianist Gilles Bernard leads a gracious tam of Thiago Ferte’/ts, Pierre Cote/b and Louis-Vincent Hamel/dr through a collection of post bop originals. Bernard has a tender touch on the piano, and with Ferte’s warm tone, pieces such as “Agathe” and “Marie” are calm and relaxed. The rhythm team knows how to flex its muscles as on the boppy “L’engime Du 401 Boulevard” but also shows its ability to caress a groove as on the gently cruising “Le Vent” Bernard can caress the ivories with rich authority, displayed on “Marie (Intro)” and “Reine Des Cimes” making this a rich part of French Impressionism with acoustics.
Bassist Alain Bedard brings together Felix Stussi/[p, Samuel Blais/sax and Michel Lambert/dr through thirteen originals that flow with elan. Blais uses his baritone well on a number of pieces here, relaxed and calm as the cymbals gently coax him on “Coupures” and the leader throbs underneath him in “Umami De Seine.” There’s a fun Monkish “face time Oracle that includes Blais’ soprano along with Stussi’s dainty piano work, while the ivories get bluesy on “Oelo” and boppish with the bari on “Chikako.” The rhythm team is able to shift gears and go into overdrive as on “Les Voiles” and the frenetic “Blue Mitch” while Lambert’s cymbal chimes along with Stussi’s piano as Blais’ alto fluffs along for “La Silva Major” . Subtlety and understatement is a key strength here; like good cooks, these artists let the strength of the basic ingredients do the work.