Association à la Recherche d'un Folklore Imaginaire
The Association à la Recherche d'un Folklore Imaginaire (ARFI) is an internationally successful jazz musician cooperative from the Lyon region , which has decisively advanced the concept of imaginary folklore .
Claim and structure
The ARFI began to form in the late 1960s as a cooperative of jazz musicians from Lyon and the surrounding area. It was formally founded in 1977. The aim was to exchange musical and organizational experiences, to win a larger audience together and to create new opportunities to perform - initially in front of striking workers and at party meetings, and in the long term in schools. The ARFI initially consisted of 13 musicians who work regularly with each other and increasingly, in addition to classical solos, also gained experience with collective improvisations. Four groups were created in the first decade: the Workshop de Lyon , the Marvelous Band , the Trio Alvire and the big band La Marmite Infernale . Other groups such as Ces Messieurs came later ; Kif Kif , L'Effet Vapeur , the drum duo Baron Samedi , the Trio Apollo or the Vollat 3 are added. In recent years the trio Dites 33 and 32 Janvier , the duo Garcia-Recio and Guy Villerds Ayler quartet have emerged.
“ We at the ARFI all have a very well developed technique of group improvisation and are able to play music in all of our formations that is really the result of a collective way of thinking. "
While the ARFI initially functioned as a closed circle, openings have been observed since the 1990s. Marmite Infernale performed together with the Breton music group Bagad Ronsed-Mor , and for several years she has played regularly with the South African Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Choir ; Baron Samedi invited musicians like Michel Godard to collaborate. ARFI musicians now regularly get together with Norbert Stein's Pata musicians for projects , but have also invited Fred Frith and Paul Rogers for the first CD of 32 Janvier . Today, Parisian jazz musicians such as Daunik Lazro , who signed Bolcato and Rollet for his trio and quintet, rely on their Lyon colleagues for bands.
The ARFI musicians have increasingly included the visual dimension in their performances for their projects. On the one hand, they regularly set silent film classics such as Alice in Wonderland (1915), Das Cabinet des Doktor Caligari or Battleship Potemkin to music , but also documentaries, for example about historical country life in France; on the other hand, they appear in their program “La Grande Spectacle” with magicians : “A technically extremely complex illusion theater for the eyes and ears lets a double bass player float through the air, instruments suddenly play without the instrumentalist, musicians disappear on the open stage, others suddenly have three Legs. “In the Palace d'ARFI there are even gastro-musical events, a combination of a concert and dinner prepared by top chefs.
Central groups
Le Workshop de Lyon
The line-up of the group, which was founded in 1968 and originally appeared as a Free Jazz Workshop , consisted of trumpeter Jean Méreu and saxophonist Maurice Merle as well as bassist Jean Bolcato and drummer Pierre Guyon and Christian Rollet . After 1971 Alain Gibert (as guitarist) and then pianist Patrick Vollat joined them for a short time . 1975 changed for Méreu Louis Sclavis . Shortly afterwards the current name of the group was chosen; since then the band has appeared as a quartet. While the workshop was mainly heard in the south of France in the first few years, it has now succeeded in expanding its field of activity to Paris and beyond the French borders. When Sclavis left the ARFI in 1983, Jean-Paul Autin took his place. Between 2008 and 2017 Jean Aussanaire formed the front line of the band with Autin. In 2018 the group, which is considered to be the longest existing jazz combo in France, consists of the saxophonist Autin and the trumpeter Fred Roudet with bolcato and rollet as the rhythm group.
L'Effet Vapeur
This group takes advantage of the achievements of fusion jazz and electronics. Saxophonist Jean-Paul Autin, keyboardist Xavier Garcia (who uses samples here in particular ) and drummer Alfred Spirli form the core of the group; they also use toys. On the first CD "Pièces et Accessories" (1997) trombonist Jacques vielle also took part.
La Marmite Infernale
Literally translated, the name of the band means "the infernal saucepan". The playful group, in which most of the Lyons musicians gather, has been producing albums since 1979 that (as otherwise) only contain their own pieces. "Structural diversity is not only achieved through different stylistic reference points (Africa, sound improvisation, wind chorale), but above all through the possibilities of extremely differentiated instrumentation inherent in the line-up." While a classic big band line-up was previously sought, all three are currently ARFI - Drummer involved, alongside Rollet and Spirli Michel Boiton. The Marmite infernale on the current album Les Hommes… Maintenant! (2016) as woodwinds Jean Aussanaire, Jean-Paul Autin, Clément Gibert, Guy Villerd, as brass players Olivier Bost, Jean-Marc François, Guillaume Grenard, Xavier Garcia on electronics and the two double bass players Bolcato and Eric Brochard. Unlike in previous years, there are no harmony instruments anymore.
literature
- Ekkehard Jost, Europe's jazz. 1960-1980 . Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1987
Web links
- http://www.arfi.org
- Interview with Guy Villerd ( Memento from March 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (French) with pictures
Individual evidence
- ↑ Only a few musicians who belonged to ARFI, such as Louis Sclavis or Yves Robert , went to Paris to turn their backs on ARFI and start their own careers from there. In 1975 the Free Jazz Workshop recorded a record with the singer Colette Magny .
- ↑ Advance notice for the 2004 German Jazz Festival. Archived from the original on January 6, 2005 ; accessed on October 11, 2014 .
- ↑ E. Jost, Europäische Jazz, p. 432