“Sfumato” is the result of what happened once this dream team found their way into a studio. In addition to Vincent Peirani, French jazz legend Michel Portal, joins the ensemble. What results is a group which brings generations together to create a sound-world rooted in the here and now. This is music in which the untrammelled imaginations of players and of listeners can roam in complete freedom, and will experience the joy of new discoveries.
The French jazz scene has a vitality, an originality and a do-it- all and do-it-anyway mentality about it right now. It is French musicians who are blazing the new trails for contemporary European jazz. There is a wonderful open-mindedness towards all musical cultures, genres and tendencies; and yet French musicians also give off the sense of having a proper grounding in their own tradition. A musician who represents all of these tendencies ‘par excellence’ is saxophonist Emile Parisien. Born in Cahors in the wine-growing region of the Lot, he is a jazz visionary. He may have one foot in that ancient soil, but his gaze is firmly fixed on the future. The leading French newspaper Le Monde has called him “the best new thing that has happened in European jazz for a long time,” while the Hamburg radio station NDR made the point of telling i...
line upEmile Parisien / soprano & tenor saxophone
Joachim Kühn / piano
Manu Codjia / guitar
Simon Tailleu / double bass
Mario Costa / drums
Guests (on 03 - 05 & 09):
Michel Portal / bass clarinet
Vincent Peirani / accordion
Produced by Emile Parisien
Executive Producer: Siggi Loch
Recorded by Gerard De Haro & Nicolas Baillard
at Studio la Buissonne (France), May 16 - 18, 2016
Mixed by Tony Paeleman
Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann
Cover art © Chen Ruo Bing, untitled, 2016,
Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan