Stretched out with my eyes closed, atop a lounger in my backyard—on a day which could only be described as alarmingly barmy, for Britain in May—I could easily have been beside the glistening Med on the south coast of France. As an aid to this imagined vacation, I popped on the new record by L’Orchestre Syncopatique, “un collectif de musiciens de jazz New Orleans de Montpellier.”
Amongst them one may find Joseph VuVan (piano and vocals), Pierre Bayse (clarinet), Benjamin Faconnier (trumpet), Oliver Bour (tuba) and Laurent Simon (drums), although the outfit operates as everything from a trio to a sextet (with a guest, presumably).
This is just about all the info I could find about them—men of few words, I guess, who prefer to let their instruments do the talking. This band obviously doesn’t waste a lot of time on album titles, either: their first, released in 2017, had none whatsoever. This was followed up in 2020 with the pragmatically named Vol. 2, and now we have the relatively long winded Vol. 3: LIVE!
Taking inspiration mainly from the work of Louis Amstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Benny Goodman, l’Orchestre presents eleven tracks paying homage to the history and people of their beloved southern states. These range from Louisiana folk anthem “You Are My Sunshine” to the relatively rock ’n’ roll “Stagger Lee,” via Mardi Gras parade staple “Chokomo Feen
