Sfumato Live..

Emile Parisien attended jazz classes at the College de Marciac as a teenager. Marciac is a small village in the South West of France, which has been home to one of the leading jazz festivals in the world for the past 40 years. This was how Emile was able to participate in several master classes given by Wynton Marsalis, who is a Patron both of the College and of the Festival. In spring 2017 Jazz in Marciac offered Emile a post as Artist in Residence, giving him 'carte blanche.' After giving the matter a lot of thought, Emile Parisien assembled a cast like a stage director would do it, and to say the very least it had some surprises in it: he wanted an "intergenerational" group, a reflection of wanting to obey sudden impulses, plus the desire to bring about encounters in many forms. Encounters are definitely something Emile loves. There's a septuagenarian, pianist Joachim Kuhn, a major name in "open" jazz. Manu Codjia, a guitarist in his 40's, an incredible sound explorer involved in numerous projects on the European scene. And then there are three in their thirties: Emile himself, of course, plus Simon Tailleu and Mario Costa. This last pair are still little known in the jazz world; they were spotted by Emile during concerts and festivals. It was a gamble to hire two young musicians to give rhythmic underpinning to the top drawer soloists, but it was a gamble which paid off. After four days of intense and convivial rehearsals during Marciac's spring residency, Sfumato's first concert was a complete success. His intuition had been right. In August 2017 Sfumato were booked to play at Marciac, where fans of Sfumato were given a huge surprise: during the concert Wynton Marsalis joined the band on the stage of the festival tent. Wynton was visibly extremely happy to be back with Emile and improvised superbly and warmly on two tunes. It was quite an eye-opener - as this release will prove.