Jazz à Trivy

There is a very strong link between Jazz and France. Paris has acted as a magnet on a lot of great jazz musicians; after the war quite a few actually stayed in Paris for a shorter or longer period of time. Apart from this, France has produced some great names in jazz as well, to mention a few: Martial Solal, Daniel Humair, Pierre Michelot, Michel Legrand, Jean-Luc Ponty, Louis Sclavis and the unforgettable Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelly. The tradition of the Hot Club is still alive in a great number of “manouche” combos.
One day we were browsing around in the Office de Tourisme in Cluny, when we got hold of a brochure called “Jazz à Trivy”. One of the first concerts in that series was a concert of Biréli Lagrène and his Gipsy Project. In Cluny the tickets had been sold out, but they told us that tickets were still available in a pharmacy in Charnay-lès-Mâcon. Charnay is not so far from here (approx. 30 km) so the next day we had tickets. Everybody who knows something about jazz also knows that Lagrène had developed from being a Django clone into a musician with a fabulous technique and a very own sound, even though he still has not forgotten his manouche background. The concert was excellent, and two seasons after the first concert, Lagrène performed again in Trivy, this time with Gipsy Project and singer Sara Lazarus. And that is what I find so amazing. Someone like Lagrène can easily fill a big concert hall, and has done so in the past. And still, this guy gives concerts in a piss pot little town, in the middle of nowhere, in a small Romanesque church which can be filled, with a lot of difficulty and after much pushing and shoving, with a maximum of 100 spectators. I am pretty sure there is a simple explanation. Possibly Lagrène was born or has lived around here, or has got some friends who live in this area and whom he does a favour; or of course a combination of both. Whatever the reason, Lagrène is a very welcome guest in Trivy. And Trivy has more to offer. The Swingle Singers of Ward Swingle were scheduled to perform not so long ago. Anyway, for jazz fans who are staying here in the summer: keep an eye out for “Jazz à Trivy”!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle