One Time @ Bandcamp With... Florian Pellissier

As I’ve dove back into musical exploration (and specifically record collecting) it has been a focus to dig into the modern Jazz movements happening throughout the world. Today you can hear vast styles being created, evolved and examined from countless places. In this music you will hear influences from new and old sonic architects, young cats who grew up on hiphop and are incorporating reinvigorated rhythms, modern production techniques and elevating the ideas of swing and groove into a sound that is equally modern and classic.

In this exploration I’ve come across scenes in cities I hadn’t been aware of prior. Paris has long been a space for expats from the Jazz scene to land and yet I generally associated it with haute couture rather than anything new musical. That was until I stumbled upon Favorite Recordings. 

When I hit upon their discography it was ear opening. Styles upon styles abound if you dig into their catalog. The first one to catch my ear was a forthcoming release from quartet Le Deal Jazz Traficantes. The album title and the beautiful women’s skyward gaze on the cover got me to click it and when I read that the album was recorded in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio I was intrigued deeper.

Only the title track is available now (full album releases October 16th!) and I have played it too many times to count. It could easily be mistaken for a classic side cut by Gelder himself and issued on the Blue Note label in the 60s. Florian Pellissier is the piano player on the tune and album and upon reaching out to Favorite Recordings I got in touch with the man. His answers speak to a man seeking more sounds, more experimentation and more excitement from music. He stays busy recording in multiple groups, all of which are worth your ear’s time. 

How old are you?

45.

What's your first memory of music?

The jingle of "France Inter" french radio in the morning my parents were listening together before they divorced when I was 4. My first shock was from the same period, the song “Fantasy” by Earth, Wind & Fire, I guess it was out in 78 in France and my older brother got the vinyl, and I started to spin it 20 times a day the next year, first I would ask him to do so, then by myself.

Did you grow up in Paris?

Yep, born and raised.

There are so much Jazz happenings in the world today, I hadn't really explored what Paris has to offer until stumbling across Favorite Records. I'm somewhat familiar with its significance to the scene in the history (Jazz musicians traveling there for festivals, relocating there due to lack of respect in the states). How does its role in that history shape the sounds coming from the city today?

There are at least 4 or 5 different currents in the city today, the first one is related to what you just said, tradition and learning from the American Jazz masters coming to Europe to play, teach or master class, there is this main road of educated Jazz kids who really pay respect to the elders wether it's copying swing, bebop or 60's Jazz.

The second one is related to the first, I would call "tradition in transition" quoting Quantic the beat maker, it is where I try to stand, it is showing respect to the language of black American music, but trying to add some straight African stuff into it, some hiphop too like new york musicians have been doing for decades, but also "groove" music. The stuff I really have fun with is to try to make anachronic music, like trying to fit P Funk music into jazz quintet acoustic music, the result doesn't sound that obvious, but let's say I try to bring the guys to play "non Jazz " stuff into a Jazz form.

The other Jazz fields in Paris are held by either free punk Jazz kids trying to explore craziness, drugs and women during the 2020's era which can be really fun or music geeks/scientists trying to make contemporary improvised classical music that doesn't swing into a new kind of sound that the conservative political people like Emmanuel Macron would give a lot of public money for, to please the old French ladies who thought they paid for a jazz gig.

Le Deal was the project that caught my attention, I have since started to dig into your other projects. Can you tell us about your first group?

My first group was called Kefontil and existed in Paris during the second half of the 90's, it was kind of a Talking Loud or Acid Jazz label tribute Parisian band. Hopefully, the internet didn't exist and there are no proofs or evidences left of this catastrophe

How do these different groups you are a part of begin?

I think they all began for the same reason (making a lot of money and having all the girls backstage......LOL...)

I am currently a member of 6 or 7 crews, who all play specific and different styles of music, somehow all related to black American music. And they are all born for the love of these unique styles from Hard Bop to Latin Soul thru Jazz Funk, most of them are 70's music cause that is the sound I master as a keyboard player, analog synthesizers, Rhodes, Clavinet, Hammond organ.... and some are paying tribute to 60's or 80's music.

They all seem to have different themes, do you have any particular style of music you prefer or do you enjoy the opportunity to explore all these different sonic textures?

The sonic textures are evocated (sic) above, I tried to be respectful of all those styles, and diggin into vinyles help a lot, looking at albums liner notes to try to find what kind of keyboard has been used to isolate all the specifics. I really have fun doing this, I got struck by light and and love the first time I heard Herbie Hancock rhodes solo on “Chameleon,” I was 15, I decided to spend one size of my life trying to understand, the piano, the keyz, the Jazz improvisation musical conversation, the tools of composition, the type of instruments used, the history of the musicians playing this, the art of studio recording, the mixing tables, the mastering, art cover, the music labels, the producers etc.... in order to be able one day to feel a glimpse of the joy Herbie felt the day he played these wonderful improvised and grooving rhodes lines.

For the differences in all the projects, I simply try to disappear into each team and magic does the rest.

Given jazz collaborative and improvisational elements, can you talk about the creation of the music you are involved in? Are there sketches to songs? Do you or some other member construct the base of a tune and then see where the other players wanna go with it?

Each project has a different vibe, sometimes a different leader.

"Cotonete" for example is a jazz funk octopus with 8 different musicians/leaders which make it really messy/hard to organize/really fun.

Working with Leron Thomas, who is a composition/musical designer master and amazing jazz trumpeter, is easy cause whether it is when he is our musical director in Iggy Pop's live band or his own project, he writes and conceives everything so you just have to paint inside the canvas and follow his vision.

With my quintet I start with a simple concept or little melody and then the quintet who is 20 years old now transforms it into music in a second.

For Le Deal this is a brand new experience for me, it is actually my first jazz session ever, with the codes of the recordings in that 60's era. First of all because we did it at the most 60's Blue Note Jazz iconic studio, then cause the session was only 5 hours long, then cause we did it in quartet and I'm only used to quintet, then cause the bass player (Theo Girard) I played with him 3 times before, and the drummer (Malick Koly) we met 5 minutes before recording...... So that gives this kind of perfect quest of the unknown that I've been looking for for a good part of my life.

What was it like recording in Rudy Van Gelder's studio? So many classic sides have been recorded there, was it foreboding or inspiring?

Ah, ah, ah, foreboding and inspiring, the first 10 minutes I couldn't play hearing the sound of the steinway I've been listening to most in my life on all these LP's, really fuckin SCAAARRRYY and I dont know how to say in english " vertigineux" (trans. giddy), then inspiring when Maureen (Rudy's assistant who inherited of the studio) made us listen the first take, Yoann  (Yoann Loustalot the trumpet player ) and I started to cry instantly, the quality of the recording was so warm and beautiful, I've dreamed off swimming into that sound for a long time.

Do you have interest in doing a straight solo album one day?

I started one in February, but it will be a multitrack solo album with a lot of synths somewhere at the cross road between Herbie 's Man Child and Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene 

My attraction to Jazz was born out of a love for hiphop. Today there are Jazz bands pulling on hiphop influences to inspire where they are taking their sounds. Is this at all something impacting you?

Ah Ah, when I was a kid there was this French TV show called "Hip Hop" and the music introducing the show was “Rockit” by Herbie, so that is how I met my Yoda, from a hiphop show in the 80's, and we kids started to try to smurf in Paris and tag the city with paint. 

15 years later in ‘99 I finally landed in NYC to study at the New School University in the Jazz program, my classmates were Robert Glasper, Bilal, Leron Thomas etc....

So, I didn't have to force it, I started studying this music for real with people that worked with J Dilla....

Has COVID been an opportunity to focus on creative efforts or have you found it hard to get inspired under quarantine?

I'm a bit ashamed as I know a lot of people struggled from this period, I had an amazing time, I played Piano everyday and drums, things I couldn't do for the past 10 years, between the tours and the side jobs, I know a lot of musician with kids who had to take care of them, my son was born in July, so he let me have all the spring to practice, enjoy the trees and flowers blooming, the birds nesting and my wife's belly growing. I can't wait for another quarantine and another baby

I love that all your music is coming out on vinyl, is that a conscious choice? Are you a record collector?

I’m a record collector. I love vinyl, I started to spin them when I was 5, the first one I bought for myself with my dad's pocket change was MJ Thriller, and I know and worship the name "Quincy Jones" ever since :)

Soundtrack of 2020?

Endicott by Leron Thomas.

Favorite book you've read this year?

I've ordered it, it is a new french translation of Bulgakov's novel Master and Margarita the equivalent of Miles Kind of Blue perfection in literature.