Nefertiti
Nefertiti
The Nefertiti Quartet’s new album LIVE IN PARIS is released by BERTHOLD records on May 26th 2023. The line up: Delphine Deau (Piano), Camille Maussion (Saxophone), Pedro Ivo Ferreira (Bass) and Pierre Demange (Drums). The album celebrates the French quartet’s tenth anniversary and was recorded live. The music is a scintillating whirl of traditional, polyrhthmic and experimental jazz, played by four excellent musicians. “It was quite a challenge not recording in a studio,” says Ferreira “but in some ways it was easier because you’re present in the moment.” Deau, who composed the music, adds “we played tunes from the existing repertoire, with only one new song, but approached the music allowing much more freedom. I wrote the main ideas but we did a lot of rearranging together.”
The quartet’s name Nefertiti gives a pointer to the band’s soundscape. It is inspired by the 1968 Miles Davis Album, one of whose tracks, with the same name, was written by Wayne Shorter in which the usual instrumental roles are reversed. The horns repeat the melody whilst the rhythm section improvises underneath. “The first impulse,” explains Deau “was to acknowledge the ancient Egyptian queen. We are two women and two men, so it felt good to have a women’s name for the quartet.” Ferreira adds “only later did we realise we were moving in the same direction as Wayne Shorter and Miles Davis in their Nefertiti.”
The track Nefertari bears a secret that Deau is unwilling to disclose. “People ask if we’re going to play Nefertiti by Wayne Shorter,” she says. “We say no, it’s such a huge tune, we can’t do it justice, but I thought we had to do something with it. Nefertari sounds like Nefertiti, but it’s not. I want people to find out for themselves how the two pieces relate to each other.” So listen to the album or come to the live concerts and see if you can unravel the mystery. This was the track played live for the first time at the Paris concert. Maelstrom / Follow My Lead involves a conundrum rather than a secret. How can one follow in a maelstrom? The answer: these are two pieces in one. “Follow My Lead, the written part, just emerged at the performance in the middle of a more chaotic improvisation,” say Deau. “We couldn’t separate them.”
TTT! is “a twelve-tone dodecaphonic two-part piece,” she explains. It has strong rhythmical elements inspired by the quartet’s drummer. “Pierre is really into African music. He also plays the sabar, a Senegalese percussion instrument. Above all he doesn’t take too much space but serves the music.” Maussion’s saxophone playing impresses throughout. “She’s really into improvised music, likes to play out of the box and to share her emotions.” This is particularly event in Vague À l’Âme (Melancholy) “which is the most easy to listen to track with a nice melody. It moves into free improvisation and in the end the tune re-emerges in a minor more melancholic key. By contrast Danse Futuriste, also name of the first album, has an open, swingy feel. The audience really likes it. We usually end concerts with it.”
The pianist sees Ferreira as the glue of the group both musically and personally. “It’s funny, the girls really talk a lot and the two men are really down to earth, cool guys. Our two opposites energies make a perfect balance during rehearsals.”
The bassist explains that “Delphine takes very good care of everything, and of us as a band. It’s her writing, so we follow her lead but she allows us to be ourselves and not just three side people. She was the first person I met when I came to Paris from Brazil, with little French, ten years ago. I approached her and she made an effort to understand what I was saying. A few days later we were playing together.”
After ten years the quartet, which won the 2019 Euroradio Jazz Competition, continues to interact and blend, creating its own exciting and groundbreaking music.
Ian Bild, November 2022
