It should have been The Way Through quartet (The Bridge #15), with Josh Berman, Jason Stein, Didier Petit and Edward Perraud, but all the impediments of the present times have decided otherwise. Berman’s cornet and Stein’s bass clarinet will certainly be heard on stage, but from a distance, by means and virtue of the recordings they will be making in Chicago for their French partners to enjoy at their leisure. On the other hand, the quartet will magically transform into a trio, thanks to the announced presence of saxophonist and flutist JayVe Montgomery, with whom the cellist and drummer crossed swords and fervor during their first tour of the Midwest, in the socio-cultural greenhouses of visual artist Theaster Gates, in November 2018. For if improvisation is a high-flying, sometimes even weightless art, these three are decidedly cultivators of vertigo.
The Bridge is (still) on tour, against all the odds. And it’s still possible to live.
To begin with, JayVe Montgomery climbed aboard a pirate ship, and crossed over to the other side of the seas, joining buccaneers Didier Petit and Edward Perraud.
To begin with, again, a residency lasting several days, as will now always be the case at the start of The Bridge’s tours, this time at Confort Moderne, thanks to the support of our partner Jazz à Poitiers.
If concert halls are now transformed into ornate caves, it’s possible to hear a strange parietal music emanating from them as you pass by.
Direction Dijon
Until proven otherwise, The Bridge is (still) on tour.
And it’s all spinning around JayVe Montgomery, Didier Petit and Edward Perraud. There are whirlwinds all around their pirate ship: in the harbor of Dijon, near Les Chiffonniers, near Le Consortium, near a lock-keeper’s house transformed into a maquis, for a recording session organized by the motley crew of Zutique Production, and a video filmed by Laure Saint-Hillier.
In Lyon’s harbor, at Le Périscope, with Michel Molines on double bass alongside Montgomery and Perraud, for a streamed concert (“streaming” means first and foremost that the current is flowing, and that there are also enriching counter-currents).
In Paris and Saint-Denis, where JayVe Montgomery went to visit the students of Paris 8, in the university cave – it was a treasure hunt – while Didier Petit carried out his own expedition, “Les mondes d’ici”, at the Théâtre d’Ivry, as part of the Sons d’hiver festival.
The two of them even remade the world a little during a round-table discussion on the state of things and how to turn it around, with Jean Rochard, Raphaëlle Tchamitchian, Pierre Tenne and Yaping Wang.
It’s happening again. It’s happening in the real world. These are real-life events, bottles in the sea.
Direction Brest
In all responsibility, JayVe Montgomery, Didier Petit and Edward Perraud continue to move heaven and earth, in the stoppages of play – since our era would like to stop the game. But we can continue to play in stoppages, in the interstices.
In Brest, thanks to Plages magnétiques and the local forbans, in a cellar, in a college, in a desecrated chapel, with two characters from the show “Alice, de l’autre côté” by Compagnie Dérézo as grand chamberlains.
In Central Brittany, in the granitic rocky chaos of Toul-Goulic and at the Trémargat educational farm, among friends and families.
At La Dynamo in Pantin, for Paris 8 students and a generous handful of faithful and unfaithful. Film to follow.
Wherever possible. Working on the possibilities.
Direction Albi.
Last stretch, last haunts, for JayVe Montgomery, Didier Petit and Edward Perraud: the Frigo in Albi (“Conservatoire des arts rafraîchissants” – you can’t make that up, or rather, you can), for a performance recorded by Radio Albigès.
And then again the following day in the Radio Campus studio in Toulouse, thanks to the allies of Un Pavé dans le Jazz, and with agro-biologists and students from the Purpan agricultural engineering school. Living music and life sciences. Connecting what nourishes bodies, hearts and souls: there’s no better way to combat “cultural covid”.
And then, finally, the next day with Radio Campus in Tours, but not only: a concert for students and participants from Cultures du Cœur 37, Volapük, Temps Machine and civic services. All those we can still welcome, at Le Petit faucheux, to form the circle.
Heading for Indre-et-Loire, Burgundy or Tennessee. Scattering order. Until the next expedition. There will be.
