[jazz]

avec André  Rhéaume

19 H 16
Titre: Insomnie
Album: Matthieu Belanger: Insomnia (****)
Interprète(S): Matthieu Belanger, Andree Boudreau, Wayne Smith, Claude Lavergne
Compositeurs: Matthieu Belanger
Étiquette: Xxi, Xxicd - 21598


http://www.matthieubelanger.com/

I’ll start with two anecdotes or, if you prefer, two somewhat eloquent variations on a theme.

It was about ten years ago, in that Vieux Québec record store that used to be called Musique d’Auteuil, when a jazz maniac called Bernard was still working there. I was browsing through the jazz section, not paying too much attention to the music playing. I recall identifying the tune as a contemporary reading of “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk”. I was still strolling around when the sound of a clarinet caught me off-guard. Since Charles Mingus’ music belongs to the universal repertoire now, and it could have been any musician in the world, except that to my ears...

“Isn’t this Matthieu Bélanger?” I asked Bernie, who was busy labelling a bunch of new CDs.

He handed me the jewel case.

“It just came out: Hommage à Mingus, by the Normand Guilbeault Ensemble...”

...featuring, among others, Matthieu Bélanger on clarinet. I could have bet!

A couple of weeks later, by a warm summer evening, I was on the highway, in Suzie’s sports car. I was scanning the FM band, looking for some digestible music, when once again a solo clarinet got me to tune into Radio-Canada’s now-defunct Chaîne culturelle. Puzzled, my sweetheart raised an eye-brow, just like Mr Spock. It could have been any musician in the world, except that to my ears...

“I’m pretty sure it’s Matthieu!”

Suzie and I kept listening to the virtuoso, as we waited for the radio host to confirm my guess. Fifteen minutes later, bingo. Again.

In jazz, everybody knows a great soloist must have his own style, his own unmistakable sound. Mathieu Bélanger is a great soloist. To verify that, one only has to listen to the records he made as a sideman in bassist Normand Guilbeault’s, pianist Yves Léveillé’s or vibes master Jean Vanasse’s bands, or the album he made as a member of the pop act Ann Victor. To my mind, he is one of the most exhilarating improvisers on the Montreal scene. I’ve had this belief since the first time I heard Bélanger at Café Sarajevo, where he used to come and jam with Lili’s Tigers, the house band led by my old friend from Université de Montréal pianist Anthony Rozankovic. At the time, I nicknamed him the “Mad Clarinettist”, as a comment on his prodigious technique, the intensity of his playing and his Coltrane-like volubility. I remember particularly well those unending solos, especially in the standard “Just Friends”, where Bélanger just kept blowing and blowing over the rhythm section’s steady groove, chorus after chorus, crescendo and diminuendo, never out of breath, never out of inspiration.

One can hear all those qualities in this debut album I’ve been expecting and demanding for a decade now. But, like great wine, Bélanger has gained in maturity – passing years and fatherhood must have had something to do with that, wouldn’t you say, my friend? Obviously, the clarinettist doesn’t feel he has to systematically dazzle us with virtuosity. The double influence of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy (to whom homage is humbly paid in “Blues for Mr Dolphy”) is still audible, but as a  distant echo of that noble lineage. With his new-found wisdom, Bélanger reminds us of the virtues of controlled freedom, and the secret intensity expected of passion’s embers, just like Wayne Shorter, another of the clarinettist’s role models.

Still, don’t fear: this newly-discovered moderation doesn’t exclude the occasional explosion, as in “Rollercoaster”, “Running for the Train” or on other tracks. However, this album provides us with the chance to get to know Bélanger as a composer who cares a great deal for harmonic nuances and as a songwriter: what a poignant homage he’s offered the Katrina-devastated birthplace of jazz with his tune “Wandering Souls of New Orleans”, brilliantly sung by blues veteran Bob Walsh. One even gets the opportunity to appreciate Bélanger as a generous leader, not interested in outshining his colleagues as much as willing to establish a rich and fruitful musical dialogue with them. Of course, it certainly helps when the said colleagues are as gifted as Wayne Smith on acoustic bass, Claude Lavergne on drums and, last but not least, the ravishing and talented Andrée Boudreau from whom I think we decidedly haven’t heard enough in the last few years. (And how about a follow-up to that first CD of yours, Andrée?)

To untrained or indifferent ears, most jazz albums sound alike. But if one listens closely to the music on this record, one has to agree that it wasn’t recorded by any other musician in the world.

There’s only one Matthieu Bélanger. And that’s the reason why we must appreciate him for his great worth.

Stanley Péan
Writer and jazz enthusiast