Nguyên Lê

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Nguyên Lê at Essen.Original. 2016

Lê (actually Lê Thành Nguyên * 14. January 1959 in Paris ) is a French world music - and jazz - guitarist and composer of Vietnamese origin, countries on many important jazz since 1996 the festival plays.

Live and act

Lê, son of the Parisian professor and educational scientist Lê Thành Khôi , was an autodidact who first learned drums at the age of 15, then guitar and electric bass. He completed a degree in fine arts and philosophy in Paris. From 1983 he played with Mario Canonge, later also with Étienne M'Bappé , in the Afro-Caribbean fusion band Ultramarine . He became a member of the French " Orchester National de Jazz " in 1987, where he played with Randy Brecker and Carla Bley , among others . Three years later he released his first solo CD Miracles . In 1992 his album Zanzibar was released .

In 1993 he appeared as a soloist with the WDR Big Band at the Jazzpañna Concert and on Vince Mendoza's CD Sketches . In the same year he recorded in the Trio Init with André Ceccarelli . He then played with Andy Emler's Megaoctet , Marc Ducret (Songs from the Sixties) and Michel Portal . He became known throughout Germany in 1994 through the Berlin Jazz Festival . In 1994 he founded his own Nguyên-Lê trio, and the album Million Waves was released a year later . In June 1995 he presented parts of his concept album Tales from Vietnam for the first time at the “Halle That Jazz” festival in Paris.

Another band project Lês was founded in 1998, Maghreb & Friends , which was mainly oriented towards Algeria. The group presented their album at concerts and festivals all over Europe (Moers, Angoulême, Paris, Montreux, Rome, Cologne and others). The album Walking on the Tiger's Tail , recorded in late autumn 2004, is heavily influenced in its titles and themes by thinking along the lines of Daoism . He had previously overcome a serious illness that made him think of the "tiger death" and how he could deal with it. He has transformed his experiences into a filigree, floating soundscape. This music is reminiscent of concerts by the Oregon group and those of Renaud Garcia-Fons . In 2011 he received the Prix ​​Django Reinhardt .

Lê is also on albums by Vince Mendoza , Pierre Louis Garcia, Thierry David, Ray Charles , Claude Nougaro , Michel Portal , Romano / Sclavis / Texier , Cæcilie Norby , Geir Lysne , Ulf Wakenius , Céline Bonacina , Kudsi Ergüner , Dhafer Youssef , Safy Boutella , Karim Ziad and Panzerballett can be heard.

Musical themes and influences

Nguyên Lê (2008)

As a young man he experienced the influences of the European world music metropolis Paris, had parents who valued European classical chamber music. He made the traditional music of Vietnam independently without any academic schooling as his subject of study in order to strive for a fusion with his other cultural influences.

In a duo with the singer Huong Thanh and the multi-instrumentalist Hao Nhien or with befriended European jazz musicians, he realized an incomparable crossover of ethnic music and jazz. The traditional paths of jazz were not enough for him. In addition, he experiments with the funk trio ELB (Erskine - Lê - Benita) and his Hendrix project in rock tones.

His CD Fragile Beauty , which he recorded in 2007 as a duo with Huong Thanh, took top positions in the World Music Charts Europe in spring 2008 (April 2nd, May 4th).

Insightful quotes

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  • “May all colors, accents and spices come together sincerely, may they be like a middle way between the currents of cultures: West and East, Central and Pole, South and North, radiant and attractive.” - Nguyên Lê
  • "No one else plays the guitar like him, with this rock-bitingness that is high in the breaks, the call motifs wafting across from Buddhist rituals and the strange transition loops," wrote Ulrich Olshausen in the FAZ about Nguyên Lê in 1993 on the jazz Festival Berlin .
  • “I am a personified fusion of cultures.” - Nguyên Lê

Projects, formations (status: 2009)

  • Nguyên Lê Trio
  • Nguyên Lê "Jimi Hendrix Project"
    • Nguyên Lê: guitars, arrangements
    • Cathy Renoir: vocals
    • Michel Alibo or Linley Marthe : electric bass
    • Karim Ziad or Francis Lassus : drums, percussion
  • Nguyên Lê "Purple"
    • Nguyên Lê: guitars
  • Huong Thanh and Nguyên Lê - "Dragonfly"
    • Huong Thanh: Singing
    • Nguyên Lê: guitar, arrangement
    • Hao Nhien: vaulting board zither ( đàn tranh ), box zither ( đàn bầu ), flute ( sáo ), percussion
    • Dominique Borker or François Verly: percussion, synthesizer
    • Michel Alibo or Étienne M'Bappé : Bass
    • Joël Allouche: drums, percussion
  • Nguyên Lê Quartet:
  • ELB (Erskine - Lê - Benita)

Discography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Nguyên Lê  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Vietnamese Embassy Berlin: Two Vietnamese musicians nominated for German awards , April 20, 2018
  2. ↑ Brief portrait with discography
personal data
SURNAME Lê, Nguyên
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Le, Nguyen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French jazz guitarist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France