antoine boyer etc

scot

Here are a couple recent videos from the amazing Antoine Boyer, whose playing and composing is more advanced and modern than ever...



This is Jean-Marie Pallen, the man who told me the story about working for Baro Ferret I posted a while back. Jean-Marie is an excellent guitarist with a unique way of using chords.

Bob Holo

Wow.... ! He's synthesized something entirely new to my ears in that solo piece. It's dissonant and yet beautiful and classical and yet resolves in tonalities that evoke France and Manouche. That's fantastic work. For all those who say "Where is the innovation in this music?" Well... here you go. Chew on this for a while ;-)

Michael Bauer

Antoine is truly a special talent, and I love that he is blazing his own trail through the music world. Both pieces by him are lovely, but the Exploration is a worthy composition that will probably find its way into the classical repertoire with time. Wonderful person, and incredible musician!!! And I loved the Pallen piece, Scot. Although I don't speak French and I was left wanting to know more about the piece.

husy

Very cool. To my ears it's reminiscent of guitar pieces by Villa Lobos (e.g. Preludio y Danza), and some modern South American composers. What's impressive is that he's playing with a pick, but he creates a complex sound as if using classical guitar technique.

Al Watsky

He's good download his CD.

scot

Exactly right, Bob - Antoine is a true innovator. He's only 18 or 19 years old, too.

The various manuscripts in the Pallen clip are the original charts transcribed by Gerard Levesque as Django dictated to him(!). Levesque gave Jean-Marie many of these charts when they both worked as studio musicians in Paris. I'm not certain but I think that the playing is basically his take on Porto Cabello, based on motifs in the original chart (shown at the start of the clip). He talks about Django's creativity and how Levesque transcribed and that sort of thing.

Jean-Marie does not play anything you'd call gypsy jazz, but he's a fine interpreter of Django's music and an excellent composer and jazz guitarist in his own right.

mandocat

Also pretty awesome is the 10 minute long version of "What Is This Thing Called Love" by Boyer, Giniaux and Brunard on YouTube. The kid definitely holds his own.

scot

More from Antoine Boyer...

Bones

I like the flamenco-style rhythm he gets with the flat pick.