Notes Bleues.

C'est un challenge d'être une référence, de faire jouer les meilleurs, les plus talentueux, et d'organiser tout ça avec du sens. Mais le Président et Greg de Villanova savent rester modestes. Si le label Blue Note a montré la voie, c'est avec beaucoup d'humilité qu'ils prennent la relève. Écoutez-les s'acharner l'un contre l'autre et désacraliser le jazz pendant 2 heures, le format idéal pour deux oreilles.

🌎 Le Président and Greg de Villanova resume their vinyl duel with full-length jazz tracks that move from hard bop to soul jazz, blues jazz and a touch of West Coast air. Lou Donaldson opens the door for Grant Green and Big John Patton, before Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Andrew Hill and Thelonious Monk shift the mood from groove to angular invention. Parisian banter, sharp elbows, good records.

1. Blues Walk - Lou Donaldson.
2. Sookie Sookie (Live) - Grant Green.
3. Tune Up - Sonny Rollins.
4. Jungle Fantasy - Herbie Mann.
5. Blue Train - John Coltrane.
6. Black Feeling - Johnny « Hammond » Smith.
7. Speak Low - Sonny Clark.
8. Johnny Hammond Boogaloo - Johnny « Hammond » Smith.
9. Señor Blues - Horace Silver.
10. Fish ’N Rice - Andrew Hill.
11. Get Happy - J.J. Johnson.
12. The Skipper - Henry Franklin.
13. Bag’s Groove - Milt Jackson.
14. Bucket - Jimmy Smith.
15. Criss Cross - Thelonious Monk.
16. Subdued - Jackie McLean.

📝 Rb₂·Φ-14¡M, 18 November 2024(Planet number 16)

Mist hangs below the maize terraces; above it, market awnings stretch between fitted stone walls. Beside a temple with unfinished steps, a porter chalks the latest wartime detour onto a column.

Le Président claims the courtyard bench is reserved by his folded cloak. Greg de Villanova points out that the cloak belongs to the woman now charging them both for cushions.

Lou Donaldson lends his first two market pitches to Grant Green and Big John Patton. He watches them unpack beneath the mossy columns, offering advice neither has requested.

Grant Green’s deeply grooved printing blocks attract young cloth-makers, who buy broken sections to repeat on their own tapestries. He charges extra for the pattern everyone previously considered a mistake.

Sonny Rollins teaches his niece a counting game inherited from his island family. They hop between courtyard paving stones; she disputes whether the cracked ones count as sea.

Herbie Mann’s hollow-reed perfume sprayers outsell the heavy stone scent bowls. At his sunlit stall, customers queue to have their wrists misted with crushed terrace flowers.

John Coltrane practises throwing maize rings over a stone peg before breakfast. His neighbours count through the workshop wall; he retrieves every ring and begins again.

Johnny ‘Hammond’ Smith takes his nickname from his clay press and paints both across his workshop lintel. Customers arrive asking whether Hammond repairs sandals. He points at the picture.

Sonny Clark serves bean stew with blunt quantities of chilli and exquisitely measured cubes of squash. A mason asks for more; Clark adjusts the garnish with bronze tweezers.

Hammond moves comfortably between temple roof tiles, household bowls and obscene festival figurines. He turns the latter towards the wall whenever the temple purchaser enters his workshop.

Horace Silver prepares a feast using his father’s island recipe, steaming maize in coastal leaves. His cousins gather in the outer courtyard and argue over which additions their father permits.

Andrew Hill turns the rationed fish-and-rice supper into seven nested parcels, each requiring a different fold. His lover sits opposite, untying the first with an obsidian hairpin.

J.J. Johnson presents divorce petitions beneath the crumbling plaza’s last intact portico. Young advocates copy his economical gestures; their teachers copied them too. He requests a bench without his former wife.

Henry Franklin, known as The Skipper, ferries western salt traders, shrine pilgrims and quarry crews across the irrigation reservoir. Everyone receives the same lecture about keeping sandals off the gunwale.

Milt Jackson answers to Bags when children call from the overgrown path. He holds their picnic cloth level while they load stolen guavas; his own contribution is salt.

Jimmy Smith drives the maize mill with his feet while shaping supper dumplings by hand. Since his assistant leaves for transport duty, he keeps the assistant’s lunch portion.

Thelonious Monk lays out an angular house among abandoned foundations, leaving two rooms deliberately unbuilt. The prospective owner stands in one, testing whether her mother-in-law can see across the gap.

Jackie McLean maintains the guesthouse water connection and plays its inspector in the courtyard drama. Tonight he checks a leaking joint in costume while the audience takes its seats.

Must replace the chipped egg cup.

BATTLE JAZZ GALACTICA

Always the Full Tracks.

Killer Vinyl Cuts and Short French Banters.

Mondays at 11 PM, Thursdays at noon on Radio Campus Paris, 93.9 FM & DAB+, Wednesdays at 6 PM on Campus FM, Toulouse, 94.0 FM.