Reader, you know I love a good pianist. And you know I love anything to do with France. So let me cut out the fluff and simply say that this French record features a lot of exceptional piano, is everything I value most in a jazz record, and leave it at that. (If only it had a distinctive female vocal, it would be perfect.) You should therefore support The Washin’ Machines by downloading From Harlem to Montpellier via their Bandcamp, tout de suite. But perhaps I should fluff it up a bit, if I’m to convince you to part with $15.
This eleven-track marvel is already a few years old, but appears to be the latest record released by the Gallic group comprised by Gilles Berthenet (trumpet), Ezequiel Célada (clarinet), Arthur Defrain (washboard), and Auguste Caron (piano, arrangements). There’s very little info about them online: no website, no social media—only a few live performances preserved on YouTube—which is all the more reason for me to bring them to your attention.
From Harlem to Montpellier is a superb showcase of the small outfit’s talents—and particularly those of Caron—drawing heavily on the pioneering work of Willie “The Lion” Smith. It features a range of Lion compositions from the quasi-classical “Concentratin’” and “Echoes of Spring” to the more danceable “Harlem Joys” and “Streamline Girl.” Alongside these are James P. Johnson’s “The Dream,” Sigmund Romberg’s “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” and more classics besides: all equally dreamy, in quality if not in name.
In all cases Caron’s piano is foregrounded—something that obviously appeals to me. In the seminar mentioned elsewhere on this page, each Shirt Tail Stomper introduced themselves and joked that their instrument was best. But only one of them was right, for the piano clearly stands head and shoulders above all others. An orchestra in a box, it is a marvel of musical engineering whose harmonic depth surpasses almost anything in existence. There is but one thing it cannot do: bend notes—in all other ways, it is the better of any instrument out there.
But of course, even the best instrument requires skilled hands, and Caron’s are amongst the most talented around. The music he plays is what I’d call “peak piano”: that golden age of the ivories when the rich dynamic landscape of the classical composers still influenced players’ work, before rock ’n’ roll reduced their playing to incessant rhythmic thumping. Caron’s playing is outstanding in its range—from his one-note accompaniment at the start of “Black and Blue” to the machine-gun passages in Duke Ellington’s “Jubilee Stomp” (which sound like the work of four hands rather than two), encompassing stride, ragtime and more.
Putting my own personal preferences to one side for a second, Caron’s performance is undoubtedly the standout performance of this disc. His bandmates are great players no doubt, but their work is a (very entertaining) sideshow to the 88-keyed main event. I think the band probably knows this, as every track featured was originally the work of a pianist-composer. This record is undoubtedly an ode to the piano and some of the men who have manipulated it best. (Indeed, only men—it might have been nice to hear the likes of Mary Lou Williams, Lil Hardin Armstrong, and Una Mae Carlisle represented too.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that the other guys are mere background noise. In fact, there’s a nice range of participation by each instrument across the album: “Sweet Louisiana” is more or less a piano solo with some sweet contributions from Célada’s clarinet, “The Dream” features substantial augmentation by Berthenet’s trumpet, while “Bounce of the Sugarplum Fairy” sees everyone onboard from the outset for a wild mashup of symphony and swing.
First recorded by John Kirby and His Orchestra (spelling “Sugar Plum” as two words, if you want to look it up), this toe-tapping take on Tchaikovsky is an undoubted highlight of the disc. I know I’d heard or seen the title before, but I don’t think I’d heard the track—I’ve been listening more or less on repeat ever since. It’s another wonderful artifact of a time when jazz piano was young and classical sensibilities were still common amongst composers. Anyway, you know what you need to do now. If you’ve forgotten, refer to paragraph one.
From Harlem to Montpellier
The Washin’ Machines
thewashinmachines.bandcamp.com
