FRANCK AVITABILE

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                                            F R A N C K         A V I T A B I L E
 
 



I don't see why the sound from classical pianists should be better than that of jazz pianists. There is no reason for that. Music is the same for all...»

One who has never heard Franck play a Brahms Intermezzo, ignores how much this sentence of this young pianist, is full of sincerity. An unique sound, a true fingerprint of a musician fascinated by his illustrious seniors (Bud Powell, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea or Michel Petrucciani...) and more than likely Michelangeli or Horowitz, this sound - as beautiful as it is - would be only decorative if it was not complementary to the writing. "To write, as Cocteau said, is an act of love. If it is not, then it is only writing".

Franck Avitabile writes just like a gold digger who would seize his treasures with full hands in order to share its glitter. From his searches into Bach's Chorals, he has brought in this harmonic wealth and sense of dissonance, to which his improvisations owe their peculiarity. His melodies are so mny recollections, conscious or not, of the composers, he keeps on studying almost everyday on his keyboard : Debussy, Ravel, Brahms, and Chopin. Still for all that, Franck stands as an authentic jazzman. But it's surely the strength of his technique and musical culture - jazz and classical - which makes him fly so high, so far, always more free and inspired. A tree takes no chances teasing the sky when its roots are deep.

With Short Stories where flows the spirit of other short stories, from Debussy's Children's Corner to Schumann's Scène d'Enfants, Franck Avitabile is no longer on earth. Of course, one may always be reassured by calling him a jazzman, a pianist or both at the same time. But, just as for Chopin or Brahms who were not the worst pianists, these Short Stories should let us forget the tool in favour of the essential : the Music.

Arièle Butaux

 

Produced by

Francis Dreyfus

ARTISTIC DIRECTION

  1. 1.Diego Imbert


THIS ENTIRE ALBUM

  1. 2.was realized without editing


TITLES :

  1. 3.Arabesque

  2. 4.Childhood Memory

  3. 5.Reverso

  4. 6.Twisted Nerve

  5. 7.Cat Tale

  6. 8.The Third Eye

  7. 9.French Song

  8. 10.Medley

  9. 11.Little Monkey

  10. 12.Rhapsody

  11. 13.Inside Out

  12. 14.Rolling

  13. 15.There Is No Greater Love

  14. 16.Musings

  15. 17.Shortly After Midnight

  16. 18.The Twilight Hours

  17. 19.On Walking

  18. 20.Over The Rainbow


«I’m trying to get a sound as clear and beautiful as possible.

Short Stories

Released : September 2006 Dreyfus Jazz / Sony BMG

LINE UP :

Franck Avitabile (piano)


RECORDED

& mixed in March 2006 at Studio de Meudon by Pascal Besnard, Masterised by Yves Delaunay, DYAM Music


Piano STEINWAY D

#547170 prepared by Bernard Faulon, Studio de Meudon


"An immediate complicity becomes established with the listener. Composition like Arabesque, Third Eyes, Inside Out, Twilight Hours and mainly French Song testify of a crystalline, almost translucent poetic universe, a changeable landscape from which the presence rereleases in the fringes of the musical consciousness and constitutes obviously a welcome profit of the performance in solo piano. Pair of shorts Stories represents in general a rare and brilliant fulfillment, a supplier of clear miracles."

PS : technical : beautiful piano, very beautiful recording, clear and naturally reverberated

R10, jazz evening of the month, Classica Répertoire, September 2006


"Every detail constitutes an entity in itself but all wear the imprint of the narrator. On top of a perfect control of the keyboard, Franck Avitabile possesses a style indeed to him, served by an impressive touch, admirably returned by the natural sound recording of the piano... Bet that we shall go through for a long time Pair of shorts Stories as we make it for Scott Fitzgerald's collections."

CHOC Jazzman, Alain Tercinet, September 2006


"Of the piano as this one, recorded in the conditions of a concert, without occasions nor "editing" of no sort, we hear it hardly in the field of the jazz. " Why would the sound of the classic pianists be better than that of the pianists of jazz? The music is the same for all ", says Franck Avitabile, jazzman pianist. And he proves it in theses shorts Stories which have the narrative perfection of the stories of J.D. Salinger, the emotion less but the same security in its art. An awake perfect touch. Avitabile would be a writer whom the music saved from the melancholy. We still feel this one in the game play but kept at a distance by a young man who crossed the French piano of Debussy and Ravel to Michel Petrucciani to result in this profound mystery in full light: the territory which extends enters the piano ( this mechanics) and the music ( this thought)."

ƒƒƒƒ Télérama, Michel Contat, September 2006


"The former foal of Petrucciani becomes a pure blood with an amazed album and emerveillant... Franck Avitabile cries out to whom wants to hear him that this recording was the most testing which is to record. What would he want, this Avitabile? To play sensitively, restraint, in boss of the well thought and felt harmony, as he makes him on Over the Rainbow and seventeen other details of the album, and not have to work a little, before? To offer us a collection amazed by musical short stories, to compose the running of an autumnal river glanced through by a tear-off carpet, to astound us to a potpourri of its own works, and that it requires no effort? To juggle between sensibility and power, dynamism and musing, as a book of invented images, and that we want at no time to pull down violently the lid of the piano on the fingers? Little brat, goes and sacred album, likewise."

Les Inrocks, Christian Larrède, September 2006


"The fascination which exercises Avitabile proceeds of its capacity to make understandable its musical intelligence... Real collection of sound short stories, this album takes off at breakneck speed bordering on the frustration. We return behind, we cross in buckle a piece which already escapes us, we always want it more ... Avitabile surprises us, charms us, strikes us, always becoming a little more indispensable."

Jean-Baptiste Méchernane, Pianiste Magazine, October 2006


"The colors of each of them are just like the rainbow which close the album: unique and infinite at the same moment. Unique because all of a shape and a sound quality purely avitabiléennes, infinite because in the lock of the album stays the feeling that Franck Avitabile could so tell us some more stories, magic and poetic, moving out other Chilhood Memory from his head. Other ' Little Monkey ' could indeed appear from touches or go out of its objective for the delight of all because the inspiration never seems to be lacking to him."

Agnès Jourdain, Piano Bleu.com Selection


"This album makes left our best recordings of piano."

meethifi.com, audiophile system internet review, September 2006


"The touch is of velvet and fragments are linked one by one to form a beautiful musical festoon."

L'echo republicain, September 2006


"It is a question of approaching a simple and very effective set in the listening, beautiful as a solo, which we shall listen to for a long time even as a classical author of perfect simplicity."

L'indépendant, September 2006


"An excellent album of comeback. Blow of heart."

Notre Temps, September 2006


"A music as the only ones the dreams can offirir us. A strictly indispensable miracle !"

THE LION, September 2006


"Sono alla ricerca di un suono puro". Sentire queste parole dette da un giovane pianista come Frank Avitabile ci fa capire quanto sia importante, per il musicista francese, la ricerca del risultato sonoro. Riportare il suono dei pianisti classici nel mondo del jazz non è difficile; lo hanno dimostrato i vari Keith Jarret, Chick Corea o Michel Petrucciani. Con questa nuova concezione nasce "Short Stories", un piano solo che spazia nel mondo jazz ma prende molto dalla classica. Avitabile ha dimostrato di saper dominare lo strumento e rendere il suo tocco unico e riconoscibile. Sono 18 brani di intenso lirismo ma allo stesso tempo di grandi improvvisazioni jazzistiche. Non mancano i riferimenti a Debussy, Ravel, Brahms e perfino Bach ma in ogni traccia viene fuori la scrittura di Avitabile, fresca, leggera. "Short Stories", ovvero brevi storie da raccontare, piccoli quadri sonori che mostrano l'evoluzione stilistica di un giovane pianista che ha già moltissime cose da narrare."

emissione del 01 Ottobre 2006, evolution music, Italy

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