Samy Thiébault, In Waves We Trust

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What Samy Thiébault choosing to take to the sea will surprise no one. He who matured his vision of jazz in the light of Creoleness, which he fully embraced in “Caribbean Stories”, simply stayed his course: in the tropics exactly, where the islands blend into the horizon. Set sail or more precisely “go to the ocean”, offer yourself in a carnal as well as mystical gesture, taste the power of nature, find in the heart of the wave something to quench your thirst for abandon.

Samy Thiébault has the ocean close to his heart. He surfed it in all latitudes and in all its colors. He loves it as a catalyst for inspiration, an infinite space that he feels viscerally. He returns to it constantly, as soon as his life as a jazzman allows him. Among the admirers of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders (whom he honors on this album), Samy Thiébault is a special case. It is not a school sound that he has – European or American – but a lyricism that he assumes in sentences with astonishing contours, finding other paths, here on the route to the Indies, there in the West Indian arc. Musically and philosophically, he says, “ nothing happens without otherness “. It is his personal quest, his taste for adventure, his Song from far away.

The otherness of Samy Thiébault is also to have been born in Ivory Coast, to have grown up in France on the Atlantic coast and to count among his anchor points the Morocco of his mother, who already animated the “Rebirth” repertoire. It’s also about rediscovering yourself as a surfer during a tour in Bali in 2016. “ When I entered the wavehe confides, It felt like a shot, it became necessary “. Whether he was aware of it or not, the beginnings of In Waves were there: finding the agreement between his musical conception and the practice of surfing, going to meet the people of the water in Guadeloupe, Fiji and in the South Pacific; to make a record that would be that of the return to the sea. Thiébault would germinate this idea much later: he then worked on “Caribbean Stories”, “Symphonic Tales” and “Awé!”.

« This is the first time I’ve taken this long to release a project. » recognizes Samy Thiébault. If, listening, “In Waves” forms a remarkable whole, we cannot imagine that the tenor literally crossed the Seven Seas and recorded in around ten different points around the globe, in Cayenne, Suva, Vientiane, Jakarta or Manila. A puzzle assembled over more than a year like an initiatory journey between euphoria, breathing gaps, questioning, daring turns and unexpected encounters. It’s Samy Thiébault, the adventurer-surfer in the style of William Finnegan or Erwan Simon, opening his microphone to the khên player from Laos (this traditional mouth organ that we hear in Theuykhong), has François Ladrezeauguardian of the Ka of Guadeloupe launching his powerful vibrato (In Waves), or even to the Fijian children who sing while pounding kava, this ancestral drink made from roots.

“In Waves” is as much a documentary journey as it is a mythological saga. An odyssey populated by real men and women, sea creatures and ancient gods from whom navigators once sought protection. “Na pua ri ki te va ka” sang the Polynesians before launching their canoe into the water. “ This is my boat, let the ocean be my boat “. Among these navigators, Cynthia Abraham, François Ladrezeau, Armelle Cippe and her choirs are a link between the wave and the divine. They speak the language of the ocean. They sing of the first sailors who populated the Pacific between 4000 and 1500 BC.

Like them, they invoke the spirit of the wind and the stars (in Samoa, it is said that it was the tears of God that created the ocean). They do not forget that on the other side of the globe the sea will be centuries later the tomb of thousands of slaves. They know what, deep down, connects all these water people: the Ocean as an entity, food and horizon. This is where In Waves takes on the appearance of an ecological as well as a spiritual manifesto. Today, faced with rising water levels, it is these men and women who, despite themselves, constitute our first line of defense. “ Climate change is the first thing for them » laments Samy Thiébault, who will donate a percentage of his concerts and record sales to SeaTrees, a program one of whose missions is to restore the coral reef in Bali. Among the villages that the saxophonist visited in the Pacific, some already have their feet in the water.

For this tenth album in the form of an initiatory fable, Samy Thiébault wanted to take a step forward. A recognized soloist and leader, this time he would put on the role of director, putting his models on the computer, a bit like a filmmaker prepares his storyboard before filming on natural settings. Returning from “filming”, he would find in these sounds from the other side of the world – voices, songs, the sound of sand and waves captured in a sampler – something to nourish the work in the studio.

Then intervenes Marine Thibault. A defector from electronics, this flautist, producer and DJ grew up at the Château d’Hérouville, a legendary studio and a mecca in the history of rock. There she “played spaceship” on iconic synths and machines. By chance or coincidence, she attended the same music school as Samy, in this village nestled between the Landes and the Gironde, with her feet in the water and the ocean as her compass. In “In Waves”, her role is essential: using pads, sequencers and her flutes that she calls “nomadic”, she reconstructs the settings and plays the continuous movement of water, in the tropics exactly . She brings to the orchestra a surplus of dream and organic entity.

Finally, once the music was recorded, all that remained was to rely on an exceptional chief editor in the person of Eric Legnini who, from a creative ferment, draws the substantial marrow and sculpts the record that you hold in your hands, certainly the most ambitious – and paradoxically the most intimate and authentic – of Samy Thiébault. A colossal work that the tenor compares, as we have said, to that of a film director, bringing together dozens of energies all over the world with the sole objective that his personal vision is transcended by the collective. For this tenth album, on the tenor or on the stage, in situ or in the studio, this “ Coltranian in the best sense of the term » as the press described him in his early days, would be sure of his art and fully committed.

« In surfing and in the mountainsexplains Samy, we talk about engagement when you go to areas that start to become hostile, at least not compatible with human security. Zones beyond which something bigger and stronger is at play. Finding these limits, playing with them through force of proposition but also contemplation, opening a creative dialogue with them, that’s the whole point of surfing… and music! And it is fundamental ».

This is what pushed Samy Thiébault to take the plunge, he who could tell you for hours about his last session in the waves of Imsouane Bay in Morocco, which inspired him Futures. Tenor and microphone slung over his shoulder, he captured the songs and choirs, the quiet and continuous bubbling of the waves, the fine sand bleached by the sun and the deep green wild nature, the turquoise water and the lines of foam . He created a “large-large” record, handling elevation, fantasy and allegory. He succeeded in painting the wave in three dimensions, and giving the listener this feeling of immersion, freedom and letting go, the one that he himself has always sought.

“In Waves” finally – but we should have started there – is a graphic novel by AJ Dungo published by Casterman in 2019. A story of mourning and resilience in the wake of a young surfer. A magnificent work which, when Samy Thiébault took it in hand, instantly gave him proof that it was possible to “ put into art » his attachment to the ocean, as well as to all these people who, even today, maintain an almost magical relationship with it.
(excerpt from press release)

Where to listen to Samy Thiébault

???? A Paris (75) Wednesday October 16 at 11 p.m. Duke of the Lombards as part of the Jazz sur Seine 2024 Showcase Evening
Samy Thiébault (saxophone)
Simon Chivallon (piano)
Marine Thibault (flute, keyboards)
Damien Varaillon (double bass)
Arnaud Dolmen (drums)
???? A Nancy (54) Friday October 18 at 9:20 p.m. at the Manufacture as part of the Nancy Jazz Pulsations
Samy Thiébault (saxophone, flute)
Leonardo Montana (piano)
Marine Thibault (flute, DJ Set, sequencer)
Samuel F’hima (contrebasse)
Arnaud Dolmen (drums)
???? A Arcachon (33) Thursday November 7 at 8:30 p.m. Olympia Theater
???? A Meudon (92) Wednesday November 27 at 8:45 p.m. Center for Art and Culture
???? A Eymet (24) Saturday November 30 at 8:45 p.m. at the Château as part of Jazz’Off Maquiz’Art

???? Agenda

• Lizz Wright Friday October 11 at 8:30 p.m. André Malraux Theater has Rueil-Malmaison (92), Saturday October 12 at 9:20 p.m. at the Salle Poirelle in Nancy (54) as part of the Nancy Jazz PulsationsTuesday October 15 at 8 p.m. at the Raymond Devos Theater in Tourcoing (59) as part of the Tourcoing Jazz Festival
  Lizz Wright (voix)
  Marvin Sewell (guitare)
  Bobby Sparks (clavier)
  Ben Zwerin (bass)
  Ivan Edawrs (drums)

• Andreas Schaerer Trio + Gilles Coronado Saturday October 12 at 7 p.m. in Studio 104 of the Maison de la Radio & de la Musique in Paris (75) as part of Arnaud Merlin’s Jazz sur vive concerts. 3 invitations for 2 to win
  Gilles Coronado “La main”
  Gilles Coronado (guitare)
  Olivier Laisney (trumpet)
  Sarah Murcia (synth)
  Christophe Lavergne (drums)
  Andreas Schaerer Trio “Evolution”
  Andreas Schaerer (voix)
  Kalle Kalima (guitar)
  Tim Lefebvre (basse)

???? Release news

• Ross McHenry “Waves” chez Earshift Music.
• Rasmus Sorensen “All The Right Time” at April’s.
• Benjamin Boone “Confluence : The Ireland Sessions” at Origin.
• Yuka Mito “How Deep is the Ocean” at Nana Notes.

???? Culture Jazz

• Publication of Jazz News n°110 from October-November 2024.
  Nubya Garcia in the headlines