Martial Solal narrated by the musicians.

Note: the original of this article is published in the blog of the excellent Guillaume Lagrée, Le Jars Jase Jazz.

Composer and arranger readers, pianist and bandleader readers, Le Jars Jase Jazz recently paid tribute to the memory of French jazz pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader Martial Solal (1927 – 2024), who closed his piano for good on December 12, 2024.

It’s time to get down to business: musicians’ opinions on the Maître de Chatou.

I asked them the same 3 questions I asked Chick Corea in 2021:

1. What are your personal memories of Martial Solal (encounters, concerts)?
2. What influence has he had on your music?
3. Which songs or albums would you recommend to those who don’t know Martial Solal’s music?

Here are the 3 French musicians who replied immediately. I’ll insist on receiving more.

Eric Le Lann (1957), trumpeter, has played in all Martial Solal‘s orchestras since 1981. Martial Solal arranged songs by Edith Piaf & Charles Trénet for the album “ Eric Le Lann joue Piaf Trénet ” (1990). Orchestra conducted by Patrice Caratini.

Eric Le Lann also recorded a duo album with Martial Solal at the 1999 Jazz à Vannes festival, ” Portrait in Black and White “.

Eric Le Lann has published an autobiography reviewed on Jars Jase Jazz, “ Scorpion ascendant Belon” (2022). He reserves his memories of Martial Solal for the forthcoming new edition of this autobiography.

Manuel Rocheman (1964), pianist, was Martial Solal‘s only regular student. On this blog, you’ll find the chronicle of a concert in Paris, at the Maison de la Radio, on January 30, 2022, featuring Martial Solal‘s Icosium concerto. Manuel Rocheman was at the piano. Here are his answers to my three innocent questions..

1. I have far too many personal memories to recount here. I’ve known him for 45 years. We saw each other and called each other very regularly..
2. A great influence! He was my teacher.
3. As for songs and albums, here are three recommended by Manuel Rocheman. (I own one).

” Nothing but piano ”  solo at MPS.

” Suite for trio ” trio at MPS with NHOP and Daniel Humair

“ Martial Solal live 1959 – 1985 “

 As a direct complement to the subject, I present to you, pianist and conductor readers, composer and arranger readers, a personal text by Manuel Rocheman, written for the occasion. Thank you, Manuel.

Martial Solal’s music is like an o.v.n.i. It has a futuristic feel, yet draws on the pure tradition of jazz. A permanent update. For me, one album perfectly illustrates the quintessence of Martial’s playing: “Nothing but Piano”, a solo piano album released by M.P.S.. in the late ’70s.

The first time I went to Martial’s house, when I was 16 or 17, I put my fingers on his piano and realized just how hard he was! To press a key, you really had to put a lot of weight into it. Martial explained to me that he had deliberately chosen a very hard piano so as never to have any unpleasant surprises when he discovered the piano at a concert. It’s true that we pianists never play in concert on the instrument we’re working on. So when I bought my grand piano, I also chose a model with good strength, so as to build up my fingers as much as possible.

Martial used to ask me to write down my improvisations. When I’d come to take lessons at his place, he’d lean over the side of the piano to look at the keyboard and my fingers, and say “Manuel, play me your improvisations”. I’d play him the phrases I’d written down and thought were interesting. He was very understanding, always encouraging me…

Eric Ferrand N’Kaoua (1963), a classical concert pianist, is as passionate about the work of Martial Solal as he is about that of Frédéric Chopin  or  Franz Liszt. In Jars Jazz Jase, you’ll find a review of his album devoted to Martial Solal’s works for piano and two pianos. The album “Martial Solal: works for piano and two pianos by Eric Ferrand N’Kaoua ” (2015) concludes with a “Ballade pour deux pianos” duet with Martial Solal.

You’ll also find a dialogue around André Hodeir  (1921-2011) by Martial Solal, Olivier Calmel & Eric Ferrand N’Kaoua, organized by yours truly, at Martial Solal‘s home, on Sunday January 22, 2012.

Opening remarks by Eric Ferrand N’Kaoua following the passing of Martial Solal. Thank you, Eric.

The blow is harsh, for Martial, despite his advanced age, remained perfectly lucid, answering his mail and taking an interest in what the musicians around him were doing, for whom he was a kind of absolute reference. The world has lost an artist of dazzling talent, but one whose historical importance we are only just beginning to grasp, so much so that he created in so many different fields, always ahead of his time. For my part, I admired the musician, but I also deeply loved the modest man, ironic without ever being hurtful, with a marvellous intelligence, aware of his own value but remaining very simple.

Answer to question 1: What are your personal memories of Martial Solal (meetings, concerts)?

Sylvia Monfort used to say: “You can only really meet others by working together”, and I have wonderful memories of working with Martial. I’ve often taken the train to Chatou to play him his works, first the concerto Échanges for piano and strings in 2009, then in 2011 the Études and Preludes which he then asked me to record, then in 2020 the concerto Coexistence and many other things in between.

In doing so, I couldn’t help thinking of the great pianist and teacher Vlado Perlemuter who, almost a century earlier, regularly took the train to Montfort- l’Amaury to pick up  Maurice Ravel‘s interpretative advice.

Over the years, we also kept up an abundance of e-mail correspondence. Martial was a pioneer in the use of computers to write music. He was therefore very up to date with technological developments and loved gadgets, which provided us with another area for discussion…

My very first visit to him, thanks to Jean -Charles Richard, was to digitize an old professional radio tape (the initial version of the Suite in D flat), for which we had brought the appropriate equipment. My most moving memory remains his presence throughout the recording of my CD Martial Solal, piano works, in which he also honored me by playing his Ballade pour deux pianos with me…

 

Answer to question 2: What influence has he had on your music?

Martial left with his secrets, not because he jealously guarded them (quite the contrary, since he published a famous Méthode d’improvisation), but simply because they were essentially unspeakable. By working with him on his music and attending his concerts, I learned a great deal about accentuation and pronunciation, and gradually and unconsciously imbibed a different musical way of being, one that cultivates the unexpected. Whatever the style, I now seem to pay more attention to character than to notes, and my awareness of time has become more precise.

Answer to Question 3 : Which songs or albums would you recommend to those who don’t know Martial Solal’s music?

With what comes immediately to mind: as a soloist, apart from My one and only love, which you rightly quote, I’m thinking of the older Nothing but piano (1976, I think), but also Martial Solal improvise pour France Musique, as a duo, the extraordinary Movability with NHOP, which can be found in Duo & trio live in Paris 1976 with Daniel Humair (a great year, indeed). With the Newdecaband, it seems to me that he brilliantly reinvented the concerto grosso in Exposition sans tableau. As for the large-scale, highly written works, I’m thinking of the magnificent concerto for keyboards and orchestra Nuit étoilée  conducted by Marius Constant, in which we find the composer switching from concert piano to synthesizer and detuned piano. The concertos I had the privilege of playing, Echanges for piano and strings and Coexistence for piano and large orchestra, have yet to be recorded, but Coexistence is still available on the Radio France platform, where it was one of the 3 concertos on the  soirée hommage of Friday September 11, 2020, along with the concerto for saxophone and the one for 3 soloists.

I’m far from familiar with his entire discography or all his works, so this short list inevitably leaves out countless gems. On the other hand, YouTube is full of sparkling live performances, not necessarily published on disc, such as these incredible dialogues with Jean-Louis Chautemps,  Bernard Lubat or Toots Thielemans, and numerous videos which, far from revealing Martial’s unspeakable secrets, only thicken the mystery of his creativity and incomparable pianistic gifts. Cf video below this article.

Following these 3 immediate testimonials, Dan Tepfer (1982) passed on to me these few memories of what he learned from Martial Solal. Martial Solal was the pianist who played and recorded most with Lee Konitz. Dan Tepfer was Lee Konitz’s last pianist. He also won 4th prize at the Martial Solal International Jazz Piano Competition in Paris in 2006. Thanks, Dan.

« I had the great good fortune to take several classes with Martial. He was always surprisingly humble. He would preface his advice with the precision that it was only his opinion, that others might disagree. And it was Martial Solal! I remember hearing him for the first time, thanks to my parents, at a young age at the Maison de la Radio (NDLR: cf album ” Martial Solal improvise pour France Musique “. 1994).

I was drawn in by the keen intelligence emanating from his playing and his presence at the keyboard – clearly, we were dealing not only with a musician, but a thinker who observed the world with a hunger for discovery. For me, hearing Martial was always a slap in the face, reminding me just how infinite the possibilities of music really are.

Now it’s time to share with you the memories of a long-time travelling companion, the drummer & painter Daniel Humair (1938).

In Martial Solal‘s piano, double bass and drum trios of the 20th century, the drummer was, with a few exceptions, Daniel Humair. The trio of Martial Solal, Guy Pedersen / Pierre Michelot, Daniel Humair, is, to my ears, the most innovative of the 50s and 60s. Even with  Bill Evans or Ahmad Jamal, you always have a Master (the pianist) and 2 servants (the double bassist and the drummer). With Martial Solal’s trio, you’ve got 3 Masters, free and equal, who are in constant musical conversation, creating a sonic climate that has never been heard before.

Here are Daniel Humair‘s souvenirs about Martial Solalinterviewed on the phone by yours truly, Thursday, January 9, 2025. Thank you, Daniel.

I was recently listening to recordings of Martial Solal in 1957, before I started with him. I realized that he played extraordinary jazz, with a modernity to die for. At the time, no pianist came close to his ankles. But he was white, French and, in jazz, we’re always indebted to the Americans, the creators of this music.

Just recently, a guy told me I was playing stuff like  Brian Blade and that it was great. I told him I was already playing that stuff when Brian Blade’s parents weren’t even born. We all have the same sources. We all started out with Louis Armstrong and Be Bop. Martial had it all, and his playing was untouchable.

I met him in Paris when I was playing for Barney Wilenwith René Urtreger& Luis Fuentes (trombone). He listened to me and then recruited me. We played together for years at the Club Saint Germain.

Martial Solal had a major influence on me. He freed me from the role of accompanist. I no longer had to mark the tempo with the bassist behind the pianist. We made music as a threesome, Martial Solal, Guy Pedersen or Pierre Michelot and me. We arranged three sounds, three textures. Freedom, creation, listening – that’s what interests me about jazz. That’s what I learned from him, and that’s what still interests me.

We drifted apart because Martial wanted to write and arrange more and more. It lacked swing, life and warmth, and I was no longer interested.

The trio Martial Solal, Guy Pedersen & Daniel Humair had been touring for years when Martial left alone for the United States in 1963, as he was the only one to have obtained a work permit. His going solo hurt Guy and me a lot.

He played at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival with Bill Evans ‘ rhythm section (Teddy, Kotick & Paul Motian), but it didn’t fit. Martial couldn’t have the sound of his trio without the other two members. Martial returned to France and the trio sounded great again at the 1964  jazz d’Antibes-Juan-les-Pins International Festival.

See the vidéo.

I left because I was fed up with being under control for sound reasons. I met  Joachim Kühn, Jean-Luc Ponty, Henri Texier, François Jeanneau to exchange more warmth in this musical friendship. Martial was not a convivial person. He invited me to dinner once in 40 years. He was a bit bourgeois, a bit of a loner, not really a member of the jazz family, but full of musical genius.

I recommend three albums in which I play:

• Suite n°1 in D flat for Jazz quartet(1959) because it is really original.

• Jazz at Gaveau(1963) because it shows where we were then. 

• Suite for trio(1978) with NHOP on double bass

These were  Daniel Humair‘s immediate recollections when I asked him to talk about Martial Solal.

After re-reading and correcting his previous remarks, I asked him two additional questions; here are his answers: (Remarks of Tuesday January 28, 2025. Thanks again Daniel.)

Two questions I didn’t ask you during our first interview. On the Solal, Pedersen or Michelot, Humair trio at the Club Saint Germain.

First of all, how was the trio’s drumming role divided with Kenny Clarke?

When I arrived in Paris, Kenny Clarke was the King, one of the fathers of Be Bop. I didn’t bow down to him. There was no friendship between us like I had with Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones. I appreciated Kenny Clarke’s music, but that wasn’t my path. In the end, Martial Solal didn’t play much with Kenny Clarke.

Then, how did things work with the American stars who came to jam?

At the Club Saint Germain, we played in trio or quartet with Roger Guérin  (trumpet). Not much with the American stars. Apart from two who really liked us, Lucky Thompson & Lee Konitz.

To conclude, I recommend two other albums with Martial Solal, Daniel Humair & Lee Konitz:

–European Episode & Impressive Rome recorded in the Rome studio in 1968 (Henri Texier on double bass).

– Jazz à Juan recorded at the Jazz d’Antibes-Juan-les-Pins, festival. Edition 1974 (NHOP  on double bass).

©The pictures of Martial Solal and Daniel Humair is the work of dandy Juan Carlos HERNANDEZ. Any use of this work without the authorization of its author constitutes a violation of the Intellectual Property Code, punishable by civil and criminal penalties.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator.