Pierre Favre is the living embodiment of the culture around drums that has evolved in recent years in Switzerland.
He is also a part of the explanation why there are quite so many drummers in this small and mountainous country. Favre’s own story is that he played drums as a young man in radio big bands and in Max Gregor’s orchestra. There are recordings representative of those early days with both Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker. And then in the 1960’s he broke free … into the world of free improv. He was on one of the early records of European free jazz, Manfred Schoof’s European Echo (1969), alongside Evan Parker, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Fred Van Hove, Irène Schweizer, Paul Rutherford, Peter Kowald and Peter Brötzmann. He toured with Albert Mangelsdorff and Michel Portal, and his regular duo with Irène Schweizer continued in existence for forty years.

Favre’s considerable art as a drummer is also to be heard on the 1980 recording Musical Monsters with Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Léon Francioli and Irène Schweizer, which has just been released. And Favre went on broadening the spectrum of what he did, working with the singer Tamia and the accordionist Dino Saluzzi, writing for large ensembles, for classical orchestras, and for Arte Saxophone Quartet. However, his solo work stands at the epicentre of his artistic creativity. His first works for drum solo, Drums and Dreams, appeared in the 1970’s. They remain a bright beacon and a huge influence for the history of jazz in Europe. His own individual sonority, his deep sense of rhythmic poetry are what mark out his work. “He opens up new vistas for us,” wrote Bert Noglik. “There is space in Favre’s universe for dancing – and for contemplation.”

CD-recommendation: Pierre Favre. Drums and Dreams. Drum Conversation (1970), Abanaba (1972), Mountain Wind (1978). 3 CDs. Intakt CD 197

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mark Feldman have been successful in finding ways to extend their duo formation, and explored different ways of completing it – whether in improvising or composition. These ensembles revolve around the same fixed core, but they reach out way beyond the confines of the duo, and allow all kinds of additive new elements in. There is renewal, but the nucleus remains preserved. The recording of Lonelyville with Gerald Cleaver, Vincent Courtois and Ikue Mori is just one example of a highly successful extension of the Courvoisier/Feldman duo.

In 2013 Sylvie Courvoisier and Evan Parker released a duo album, and also had a week-long residency at the Stone jazz club in New York which allowed them to explore and deepen this collaboration with a series of further collaborations in different formations. That led to a concert at the Roulette in Brooklyn, and a recording session for Intakt Records involving Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Feldman, Evan Parker and Ikue Mori all together. John Fordham of the Guardian praised this release highly, describing it as “a set that shows just how sonically mesmerising and musical free-improv can be.” (July 21, 2016). Stuart Broomer wrote in The Whole Note, that it was “one of the most accomplished CDs of the year”.

The Courvoisier-Feldman-Parker Trio’s performance will bring the 12-day Intakt residency in London to a resounding and triumphant close.

CD-recommendation: Sylvie Courvoisier-Mark Feldman-Ikue Mori-Evan Parker. Miller’s Tale. Intakt CD 270