Mat Maneri with Louis Sclavis, Sophia Domancich and more bring innovation and excitement to D’Jazz Nevers, France

After a previous evening packed for the ever-present Henri Texier, a full house on Monday 11 November (the Armistice Day public holiday) saw the first of this year’s innovations – a fascinating and contrasting exchange programme with the equally innovative festival Jazz Sous Les Pommiers from Coutances in Normandy. Six bands in all – three from Normandy and three from Nevers’ region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comte – each played 40 minute sets at the regular Nevers venue Café Charbon.

Guessing which band was chosen by which festival was an interesting game on the first afternoon, until it transpired that the programme book identified them anyway. The Quentin Coppalle Quintet from Bourgogne-F-C opened with the leaders’ slow and deliberate compositions, featuring his flute and a great deal of unconventional use of instruments, especially breathing, growling, and muttering through (and tapping of) trumpet and flute. Gentle and lyrical despite the often staccato rhythms, the quintet gave the impression of ‘musique contemporaine’ but played with the liveliness of a jazz sensibility. “Aha – definitely Nevers’ choice” I thought – while the second band Roda Minima were undoubtedly the kind of band that Jazz Sous Les Pommiers would let loose on the streets or dance hall in full celebratory mood. A quartet of trombone, alto sax, trumpet and drums jumped and jived in the style of a Fanfara-style marching band before switching trumpet and trombone for euphonium and guitar and rocking out to a happily standing crowd.

The third band on Monday – Brame de Zephyr from Normandy – featured kora in an otherwise standard line up of sax, trumpet, bass and drums, in which the kora played the unusual role of single note soloing until the latter part of the set when a more recognisable West African style kicked in.

That evening in the splendidly ornate Theatre Municipal the festival’s reputation for exploration, collaboration and creation was in magisterial evidence. An international quartet of Romanian pianist Lucian Ban and US violinist Mat Maneri joined French compatriots bassist Sarah Murcia and clarinettist Louis Sclavis in playing exquisite chamber music. Always conversational in tone and playing absolutely nothing but their acoustic instruments (such a joy to witness master musicians without electronics or gizmos of any kind) the quartet were patently enjoying each other’s improvisations around a set of slow, gentle, contemplative compositions contributed by each member. These four musicians are at the top of their (and everyone else’s) game, and have nothing to prove and everything to enjoy. In one of his friendly announcements, Maneri thanked the audience for their applause after a piece appropriately called ‘Happiness’ and underlined the mood of the concert by saying that the musicians on stage dreamed of “sharing music with you, our community”. No wonder, then, that the community thanked them at the end of the concert with heartfelt applause and insistence on another encore.

Sophia Domancich Trio - Photo by Maxim Francois

After a lunchtime set of free-ish composition and improvisation from drummer Adrian Desse’s trio, the main instrumentation of which seemed to centre around the gentle sounds of metal prayer bowls and cymbals caressed on open tom-toms, the second day of regional exchange kicked off with Normandy’s Black Pantone, a classic piano trio that personified swing, balance and melodic invention.

Bourgogne-F-C’s rocky, twangy, noisy guitar/sax/drums power trio SuperChevReuil followed and the afternoon was completed by an avowedly straightforward set by the Igor Hasselmann Quartet. The evening concert was undoubtedly to be the main attraction.

In another splendid creation/collaboration, French pianist Sophia Domancich brought together US bassist Mark Helias and drummer Eric McPherson to form a trio that, as with the Sclavis-etc group the previous night, was in the very highest league of musicianship and also mercifully gizmo-free. Listening intently and intelligently to one another throughout, all three placed rhythms and solos – slow and occasionally super-fast – as perfect complements to each individual musician and to the ensemble overall. Seamless, confident, inspired but seemingly effortless: the trio found the perfect balance of personal expression and collective improvisation as only the finest jazz musicians can. It was yet another fine night and the kind of immeasurable quality that we have come to expect from the carefully crafted programme of the admirable d’Jazz Nevers.