Clovis Nicolas, double bassist – The Proust Questionnaire

Clovis Nicolas, double bassist, kindly agreed to continue this series of the famous Proust Questionnaires, slightly revisited by Couleurs Jazz…

An original way to take the first steps into the world of these remarkable jazz musicians, artists of our century.

What do you consider the height of musical misery?
Electronic techno music, or music generated by artificial intelligence.

Where would you like to live?
Here, in New York, where I currently live—more specifically in Greenwich Village or the East Village.

What is your ideal of earthly happiness?
A world without war, without judging others, without racism, sexism, or conflicts based on religion, nationality, or social status. I genuinely thought we were capable of achieving that, but I believe it will take a few more generations.

Which wrong notes do you forgive most easily?
Those played with such beautiful sound, timing, and touch that they automatically excuse the wrong note.

Which fictional heroes do you prefer?
Colin in Froth on the Daydream (L’Écume des jours), even though things do not end very well for him. Sincere, gentle, sensitive, caring, stylish, with a sense of irony that must have belonged to his creator as well.

Who is your favorite classical musician?
I am always torn between Sviatoslav Richter and Glenn Gould. One day it is one, the next day the other. Among contemporary musicians, I greatly admire the violinist Christina Bouey, who performs in my quartet, Le Miroir.

Who are your favorite heroines or divas in real life?
All the mothers of the world, without whom none of us would be here. My own mother once told me that giving birth is the hardest thing a woman can do, and I take her word for it.

Your heroines in fiction?
There are female film characters who fascinate me, though I would not necessarily call them heroines. Betty in Betty Blue(37°2 le matin), Cheryl Strayed in Wild, Jane Henderson in Paris, Texas… and many others.

Your favorite painter?
Picasso, Modigliani, Schiele, Rothko, Giacometti, and many more. Special mention goes to a contemporary painter and member of my family whom I adore, Florence Marie.

Your favorite jazz musician?
I do not have just one. There are the universal masters: Oscar Pettiford, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Art Blakey… Then there are more personal affinities: Sonny Clark, Israel Crosby, Curtis Fuller, Billy Higgins, Jim Hall, Larry Gales…

Your favorite quality in a man?
That blind determination which often ends up reaching its goal.

Your favorite quality in a woman?
The innate gift of seeing and recognizing beauty wherever it exists.

Your favorite virtue?
In my family, some people are described as “truly kind.” That would be my favorite virtue: compassion.

Your favorite occupation?
Music. Even on my days off, it is what I think about most: listening to records, humming melodies, reading scores, buying vinyl, practicing my instrument, trying new strings…

Who would you have liked to be?
Myself, because we can never truly know what is inside another person. If I had to answer more fancifully, I would have liked to be one of the people who walked on the Moon.

The principal trait of your character?
A great deal of determination, I think, and kindness.

What do you appreciate most in your friends?
Determination and kindness.

Your main fault?
Being naïve, and accepting myself as such.

Your dream of happiness?
Living in New York and playing with the greatest musicians of the day. Love as well, though I will keep my comments on that subject private.

Your greatest misfortune?
Perhaps my greatest regret: selling my first double bass, a late-19th-century Thibouville-Lamy, to Vincent Artaud. It sounded wonderful, and it was on that instrument that I found my musical identity.

What would you like to be?
Someone capable of reconciling everything in terms of time: the life of a jazz musician and bandleader with that of a full-fledged composer.

Your favorite color?
Blue. My synesthesia associates it with the numbers in my birth date, 13/03. I mainly dress in blue, gray, black, or white.

Your favorite flower?
The rose. In fact, I like all flowers, as long as they are beautiful in their details.

Your favorite bird?
Small tropical birds, or eagles for their majesty.

Your favorite prose writers?
Boris Vian, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Houellebecq, Oscar Wilde, Haruki Murakami, Henry Miller, Roberto Bolaño.

Your favorite poets?
Jacques Prévert, Henri Michaux, as well as certain American lyricists such as Cole Porter, whose songs could also be considered poems.

Your heroes in real life?
Sir Ronald Carter. A hero in the sense that I would like to be like him without actually resembling him.

Your heroes in history?
People whose extraordinary lives fascinate me: Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Charlie Parker, J. S. Bach, Miles Davis, Napoleon Bonaparte, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Immanuel Kant, Nikola Tesla… A rather eclectic list, but that is also the trap of this kind of questionnaire.

Your favorite names?
To keep it simple: my own—Clovis Scipion Blaise Nicolas.

What do you hate above all else?
Hypocrisy, fakery, superficiality, whatever is merely fashionable—anything that feels false and inauthentic.

The reform you admire most?
Being declared unfit for military service.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Perfect pitch.

How would you like to die?
Fully aware of what is happening to me—certainly not in my sleep or by surprise. I have waited a lifetime for that moment; I do not want to miss the final show.

Your definition of jazz?
An improvised music of African-American origin. I truly understood this only after moving to the United States and playing the music there.

Your current state of mind?
Eager to finish this questionnaire and get back to my double bass.

And finally, your motto?
“Play music as if you belonged among the greats.”

Your Signature Tune?

Blues in Blueprint