L'imparfait des Langues is the twelfth album by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 musician Louis Sclavis

Louis Sclavis

Louis Sclavis is a French jazz musician. He performs on clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano saxophone in a variety of contexts, including jazz and free jazz...

, and his fifth for ECM Records.

Background

Sclavis had received a commission to premiere a new project at the Monaco

Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...

 Festival Le Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

, in April 2005. Having put together an ensemble, Sclavis sketched the compositions for L'imparfait des langues in 10 days. The concert was cancelled at short notice due to the death of Monaco's Prince Rainier

Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

Rainier III, Prince of Monaco , styled His Serene Highness The Sovereign Prince of Monaco, ruled the Principality of Monaco for almost 56 years, making him one of the longest ruling monarchs of the 20th century.Though he was best known outside of Europe for having married American...

; without a venue, Sclavis and his group booked into a recording studio in Pernes-les-Fontaines

Pernes-les-Fontaines

Pernes-les-Fontaines is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.-References:*...

 and recorded the music in a single day.

Music

Sclavis was keen to challenge his compositional habits and brought together an ensemble with which he had had little previous experience. The players were not 'pure jazz', but worked in many different styles of music. Structurally, many of the pieces are based on short 8 or 16 bar phrases and equal emphasis is placed on texture

Texture (music)

In music, texture is the way the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a composition , thus determining the overall quality of sound of a piece...

 and sound as well as melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

. The album has a wide textural diversity, from the 'aggressive improvisation' of "L'idée du dialecte" and Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

-style overdriven guitar of Maxime Delpierre's "Convocation" to the heavily processed vocals of "Annonce" and the repetative "Le verbe".

Track listing

All compositions by Louis Sclavis, except "Premier imparfait «a»" and "Premier imparfait «b»" by Louis Sclavis and Paul Brousseau and "Convocation" by Maxime Delpierre

1. "Premier imparfait «a»" – 1:46
2. "L'idée du dialecte" – 6:57
3. "Premier imparfait «b»" – 1:01
4. "Le verbe" – 6:42
5. "Dialogue with a dream" – 3:59
6. "Annonce" – 1:40
7. "Archéologie" – 6:12
8. "Deuxieme imparfait" – 2:16
9. "Convocation" – 1:16
10. "Palabre" – 4:00
11. "Le longs du temps" – 5:30
12. "L'écrit sacrifié" – 2:25
13. "Story of a phrase" – 7:32
14. "L'imparfait des langues" – 3:57

Personnel

• Louis Sclavis – clarinet
  Clarinet
  The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
  
  , bass clarinet
  Bass clarinet
  The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
  
  , soprano saxophone
  Soprano saxophone
  The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
  
  
• Marc Baron – alto saxophone
  Alto saxophone
  The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
  
  
• Paul Brousseau – keyboards, sampling, electronics, guitar
• Maxime Delpierre – guitar
• François Merville – drums

External links

L'imparfait des Langues at ECM Records

L'imparfait des Langues at All About Jazz