Category: Thierry Maillard

Streaming

I mentioned before that I subscribe to a streaming subscription. This truly is an amazing music discovery tool. It’s like having a huge record shop (remember those) in your own house and on the go 24/7.

I was late to the game and started streaming less than 18 month ago. How stupid of me.

Well obviously, there’s the issue that artists don’t make enough money from streaming. That’s why I, even if I don’t have to, I end up buying albums from the relevant artists I really like anyhow, and everybody should do the same, or even better, go to see them live if you can.

That said, for browsing and discovering new stuff there is simply nothing better.

Thierry Maillard: Il Canto Delle Montagne

The other day I was going through Qobuz “Nouveautés” on my Iphone (I use their app in French, the translations can occasionally be a bit clunky, although they are getting more international these days). I have the genres set to “Classique “and “Jazz”, so new albums in both categories show up here.

More out of boredom I clicked on a relatively ugly cover, a picture of a mountain scene with the Italian title “Il Canto Delle Montagne”. Even my quite poor Italian tells me this means “The Song of the Mountains” in a pretty ugly font (see below). I was expecting something either very rural or very esoteric.

Then I started playing. And noticed I got a really nice piano trio. I clicked on the album cover to enlarge and finally noticed in small white letters that we’re talking about Thierry Maillard’s latest album.

I knew this French pianist from his 2013 album Beyond the Ocean, which I really liked. OK, so moving from the sea to the mountains now.

Now what should you expect from this album? Well, the easiest is to click on the Youtube link below to get an idea, but basically this is very melodic trio jazz, in the way I realyl like it. André Ceccarelli is a French drum legend, who’s played a lot of jazz but also with pop artists like Sting or Tina Turner. He is one of the best drummers France has to offer.

I must admit I didn’t know Dominique Di Piazza, the French bassist, but it turns out he played with John McLaughlin in the past. He doesn’t limit himself to the traditional upright double bass, but goes into electric bass playing quite a bit.

Therefore, very experienced personnel here, and it shows. They pay a lot of attention to each other, and therefore each of the 16 tracks, are worth discovering. We’re not getting a lot of standards, but originals. Some background reading about the album tells me it was essentially composed after the Bataclan terrorist attacks in Paris. However, there’s no terror in here, just beauty.

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz)