Andy Emler

Andy Emler MegaOctet: No Rush! (RJAL 397044)

| Tyran Grillo

Andy Emler piano, direction
Laurent Blondiau trumpet
Philippe Sellam alto saxophone
Guillaume Orti alto saxophone
Laurent Dehors tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
François Thuillier tuba, saxhorn
François Verly percussion, marimba, tablas
Eric Echampard drums
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Nguyên Lê guitar
Recorded August 30-31, 2021 at La Buissonne Studios by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Matteo Fontaine
Mixed by Gérard de Haro and Andy Emler at La Buissonne Studios, May 30 to June 1, 2022
Mastering at La Buissonne Mastering Studio by Nicolas Baillard
Steinway grand piano prepared and tuned by Sylvain Charles
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne and La Compagnie aime l’air
Release date: February 3, 2023

No Rush! arrives as the ninth testament from Andy Emler’s MegaOctet. Conceived in the suspended air of the pandemic, the suite took shape while Emler immersed himself in the labyrinthine architectures of 20th-century music. Schönberg’s fractures, Lutosławski’s veiled aleatorics, Ligeti’s shimmering densities, the spectral iridescence of Murail, the volatile lyricism of Cavanna, the tensile drama of Manoury and Ohana all seep into the soil here. One imagines the composer alone with these sounds and his thoughts, listening not for comfort but for provocation, as if each score were a sealed letter slipped under the door. Out of that solitude came eight facets of our collective survival instinct.

“Ouv’ la case” opens with an unveiling. The piano enters as a question breathed into a darkened room, chords suspended in air that seems to inhale with them. Wind instruments murmur as though testing the edges of a new climate. Gradually, the piano’s hesitations gather warmth, focusing light the way a lens courts fire from sunlit dust. The ignition that follows is intimate rather than explosive. The title track unfolds in a stepwise melody, tender as a hand feeling along a wall for a switch. Drummer Eric Echampard and bassist Claude Tchamitchian conjure updrafts that carry François Thuillier’s tuba into buoyant arcs, its low brass made improbably aerodynamic. Trumpeter Laurent Blondiau threads bright filaments through the texture while the piano chisels out a groove of crystalline angles. The ensemble moves like a murmuration that has memorized geometry.

Throughout the record, the music returns to a ritual of emergence: spark, ascent, transformation. François Verly’s percussion animates “Think or sink” with a tactile intelligence, marimba tones falling like polished stones into water, each ripple caught by a quicksilver drums-and-bass exchange. “Just a beginning” leans into its brassy musculature, horns flaring with declarative confidence while Nguyên Lê’s guitar sketches streaks of electricity across the sky. Such solos resemble sudden apertures in the architecture, revealing corridors of thought previously concealed.

Despite the mass of sound available to these virtuosic players, restraint is never far from reach. “Fondamental 6” hovers with the poise of a contemporary chamber suite, its textures diaphanous, its gestures measured as if drawn with a calligrapher’s brush. “Three thoughts for two” begins in hushed tones, a private meditation that slowly finds its pulse, marimba guiding the ensemble into a supple drive. When the groove subsides, Laurent Dehors steps forward on tenor, his lines wandering through nocturnal avenues, lamplight glinting off damp cobblestones of harmony. It is a solo that feels lived in, not merely performed. Even the concise “Minicrobe 2” compresses an ecosystem into two minutes, a microscopic drama teeming with mutations of rhythm and color.

“Good timing” closes the cycle with exuberance that borders on the cosmic. Saxophones blaze, rhythms surge with rocketlike insistence, and the band seems to graze the sun’s perimeter without losing its wit. There is virtuosity here, yes, but also a wink, a murmured “mmm” that suggests satisfaction without self-congratulation.

In an era defined by pause and isolation, Emler fashioned music that refuses haste while never standing still. Perhaps that is the quiet thesis of No Rush! Art does not conquer time, nor does it escape it. Instead, it inhabits time so fully that seconds dilate into landscapes. Listening becomes an act of dwelling. One leaves the album wondering whether urgency is a flaw in our perception rather than a fact of existence and whether, by opening our own hidden cases, we might discover that the richest movements occur when we allow them to unfold at their chosen pace.

Emler/Tchamitchian/Echampard: The Useful Report (RJAL 397041)

| Tyran Grillo

Andy Emler piano
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Eric Echampard drums
Recorded and mixed by Gérard de Haro at Studios La Buissonne, assisted by Matteo Fontaine
Mastering by Nicolas Baillard at La Buissonne Mastering Studio
Steinway Grand Piano prepared and tuned by Sylvain Charles
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne Label and La Compagnie aime l’air
Release date: February 11, 2022

Pianist Andy Emler, bassist Claude Tchamitchian, and drummer Erich Echampard have spent more than two decades metabolizing one another’s instincts. What began as chemistry has ripened into something cellular. On this fourth recording, the self-styled “ETE” trio’s interplay feels less like conversation and more like respiration, an exchange of oxygen at the most intimate scale. They have turned toward composition with renewed devotion, shaping motifs that behave like strands of genetic code, spiraling through each piece and replicating in altered forms. The album’s title gestures toward our cultural fixation on surfaces, yet the trio answers with a plunge inward. They seek the mitochondrion rather than the mirror, the quiet engine rather than the polished facade. In doing so, they make a case for music as adenosine triphosphate, as stored light released into motion.

The phrase “polyphonic monologue” used by Raphaëlle Tchamitchian in the album’s liner notes proves uncannily apt. There are no solos in the traditional sense, no heroic cell stepping forward to claim dominion. Instead, the trio behaves as a single entity whose organs hum in cooperative tension. Each instrument pulses with a distinct timbre, yet the borders blur. The piano becomes membrane and marrow, the bass a bloodstream carrying harmonic iron, the drums a lattice of nerves firing in luminous arcs. Their unity is not homogeneity but interdependence. What one initiates, another transforms. What one relinquishes, another absorbs.

“The document” opens like a petri dish held to morning light. The bass stirs first, delicate yet intent, as if sketching the faint outline of a living form. Emler’s piano enters with subterranean warmth, rolling chords that feel like tectonic plates shifting beneath tender growth. Echampard’s cymbals shimmer into being, droplets of metallic rain, while the drums provide a pulse that suggests both heart and forge. The music gathers itself without coercion. It rises as a flame rises, by virtue of its own chemistry. The introduction is not merely dynamic but parthenogenetic.

With “The real,” urgency courses through the ensemble like an electric current seeking ground. The trio advances in braided momentum, their phrases leaning into one another, pressing toward articulation. Meaning here is discovered in the act of motion, finding a curious echo in “The fake,” where simplicity becomes revelation. Tchamitchian’s bass groove stands unadorned, almost austere, and from that clarity the others extract veins of shimmering ore. Piano figures glint as mica under sunlight. Drums trace fine filigree patterns across the muscular frame. The sculpture they erect is vast, yet its strength derives from the plainness of its foundation. Authenticity and artifice entwine, indistinguishable at the molecular level.

Even in pieces that tilt toward improvisational exposure, such as “The lies” and the two-part “Indecisions,” the trio’s commitment to structure remains palpable. Motifs are recurring dreams that are altered slightly with each iteration. Beneath the surface, one senses the flex of sinew and tendon. These are not aimless wanderings. They are the disciplined contractions of a body testing its limits. The music quivers with potential energy, poised between restraint and eruption.

Brief reflections like “The worries” function as synaptic flashes, concise yet charged. Broader statements such as “The resistant” and “The endless hopelude” unfold with a grandeur that invites the listener to nod in recognition. Through it all, the trio breathes as one. There is no arrhythmia, no faltering in the shared pulse. Their cohesion feels inevitable, as if they have tapped into a circulatory system older than themselves. By the time “No return” arrives, the listener has been carried through cycles of exertion and release. Fatigue sets in, yet it is the satisfying kind of muscles well used, of energy fully spent in meaningful labor. The closing passage offers repose, a moment when the organism settles into equilibrium.

What lingers after the final resonance fades is not merely admiration for technical prowess or compositional craft. One is left contemplating the strange fact that life depends on ceaseless transformation. Cells die so others may thrive. Energy dissipates even as it sustains. This trio reminds us that depth is not a static reservoir but a process, a burning at the core that cannot be seen directly yet animates every gesture. Perhaps authenticity lies not in the surface or the hidden interior, but in the flow between them. In that current, we recognize ourselves as both fragile and inexhaustible, flickers of stored sunlight seeking form in the dark.

Andy Emler: No Solo (RJAL 397035)

| Tyran Grillo

Naïssam Jalal flute, voice
Aïda Nosrat voice
Rhoda Scott voice
Thomas de Pourquery voice
Phil Reptil sound design
Ballaké Sissoko kora
Aminata “Nakou” Drame voice
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Géraldine Laurent alto saxophone
Hervé Fontaine beat box 
Ngûyen Lê electric guitar 
Andy Emler piano 
Recorded live and mixed at Studio La Buissonne on February 7/8, 2019, by Gérard de Haro
Steinway D piano preparation and tuning by Alain Massonneau
All guests were recorded at Studios Sextan – La Fonderie Malakoff by Vincent Mahey and Arthur Gouret
except Nguyên Lê, Thomas de Pourquery, and Phil Reptil, who overdubbed from home
Mixed by Gérard de Haro and Andy Emler
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at La Buissonne Mastering Studio
Produced by Gérard de Haro and RJAL for La Buissonne Label and Andy Emler
Release date: August 28, 2020

After a sequence of musical journeys ranging from the boldly orchestral to the hushed and introspective, Andy Emler arrives at a revealing new vantage point with No Solo. The title gestures toward a meditation on relation in which individuality becomes clearer precisely by being placed in conversation with others. Surrounded by collaborators who span generations, geographies, and aesthetic traditions, Emler constructs an expansive portrait of an artist continually navigating the blur between solitude and collectivity. From the very first notes, the music suggests that borders are never fixed lines but shifting membranes through which feeling, history, and sound continually pass.

Such tensions are announced with gentle irony in the opening moments. “Jingle tails” and “The warm up” begin as solo piano excursions, yet their isolation never feels enclosed. The playing seems already attuned to voices yet to arrive in anticipation of dialogue. The pieces balance a soft, melancholic edge with a dense sense of nostalgia, revealing Emler’s gift for emotional acuity and storytelling without artifice. As they unfold, the textures grow more panoramic and suggestive, evoking the quiet brilliance of winter light alongside the promise hidden within its stillness. Instead of lingering in recollection, the pianist moves through memory with the velocity of rewound time, allowing fragments to flicker past while granting each moment enough space to resonate. From this inward world, the music gradually opens outward, preparing the listener for a widening field of encounter.

That expansion becomes tangible in “For nobody,” where Naïssam Jalal appears first as breath rather than melody. Her flute and voice hover in sibilant, almost vaporous gestures before coalescing into drifting lines that feel both fragile and insistent. What begins as liminality slowly gathers gravity, and her presence reads less as accompaniment than as an elemental force shaping the atmosphere itself. Her timbres stand vividly in the foreground, sculpting a climate of unresolved yearning, a feeling that carries directly into “Gold timer,” where vocalists Aïda Nosrat and Rhoda Scott usher the listener into more populous territory. Spoken reflections on togetherness surface amid the harmonies, imagining a world beyond division while quietly questioning whether such separation was ever absolute. Here, Emler’s writing probes the idea that music might precede political or cultural borders, operating as a language that connects before it categorizes.

That inquiry deepens further in “Light please,” which inhabits a distinctly mystical register. Phil Reptil’s ethereal sound design and Thomas de Pourquery’s falsetto suspend time in a luminous haze, allowing the music to drift through slow currents of call and response. Voices feel scattered across invisible distances, suggesting that connection is less an achievement than a condition already written into the air. This sense of movement finds a different, more earthly expression in “12 Oysters in the lake,” an enchanting meeting of Ballaké Sissoko’s kora and Aminata “Nakou” Drame’s voice. The narrative takes shape organically, intertwining images of shared labor, mutual care, and the rhythms of the land. The kora glimmers with radiant delicacy while Drame sings with an urgency that feels both grounded and transcendent, as if addressing not only listeners but the very environment that sustains them in an act of sonic reciprocity.

“Près de son nom” shifts the perspective toward darker, more resonant depths. Claude Tchamitchian’s arco bass sketches a sequence of sonorous shapes that accumulate weight and gravity, as though the ground beneath the music were slowly giving way to ocean. The sound swells, thickens, and finally seems absorbed by an imagined vastness, suggesting how personal expression can dissolve into something larger without losing its essence. From this submerged state emerges “The rise of the sad groove,” a piece that feels as if dawn were breaking after a long night. Géraldine Laurent’s alto saxophone breathes with quiet optimism, offering tender phrases that transmit feeling without explanation. Just as the mood appears ready to drift, beat boxer Hervé Fontaine introduces a grounded rhythmic pulse, his deep bass anchoring the flight and demonstrating that momentum and vulnerability can coexist.

In closing, “You’re so special” arrives as a generous ballad illuminated by Ngûyen Lê’s singing electric guitar. Its lyricism soars yet remains warm, drawing together the strands of connection that have threaded through the entire work. Taken as a whole, No Solo reveals how distinctions can coexist within a shared space, allowing identities to overlap without dissolving into sameness. The music does not simply end but recedes toward a quiet horizon, where breaths, strings, and distant echoes continue to shimmer just beyond hearing, as if the lines between here and elsewhere were slowly loosening in a gentle, unbounded glow.

Andy Emler/François Thuillier: Tubafest (RJAL HS001)

| Tyran Grillo

Cover

Andy Emler
François Thuillier
Tubafest

Andy Emler compositions
The “Cactus” Quartet
Théo Ceccaldi violin
Anne le Pape violin
Séverine Morfin viola
Valentin Ceccaldi violoncello
Duo Fact
Anthony Caillet euphonium
François Thuillier tuba
Evolutiv Brass
Anthony Caillet euphonium
Gilles Mercier trumpet
Nicolas Vallade trombone
François Thuillier tuba
Recorded live at Le Triton, Les Lilas on October 24/25, 2014 by Gérard de Haro et Jacques Vivante
Mixed and mastered at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne
Produced by Andy Emler and François Thuillier
Release date: March 1, 2015

Unlike strings, which tend to feel darker and more brooding the deeper they become, there’s something lively and invigorating about brass at its lowest registers. This is certainly true of tuba virtuoso François Thuillier, whose prodigious talents have graced some of La Buissonne’s finest recordings under its own label. After playing the role of bassist in Amly Emler’s outfits for years, Emler decided to put together some new pieces and performances in late October of 2014 as a way of throwing the spotlight on Thuillier and his métier. Thus, “Tubafest” was born, of which three of the five compositions on the program are presented for our enjoyment.

“Tubastone 12023” is the result of an offhanded remark by Thuillier, who once expressed a desire to play with a string quartet. Emler happily obliged by producing this piece for that very combination of instruments. After the strings prime a verdant canvas, the tuba plants its feet firmly to unravel a patient song. With whistles of appreciation (and even a “Yeah, baby” for encouragement), the quintet handles exuberant changes of scenery without skipping a beat. Over the course nearly 22 minutes, they tell the story of something at once urban and rural, an emotional transference of proportions that speak not only to the heart but also the mind.

Emler’s frameworks always leave plenty of room for improvisation, but especially in “Art et Fact 1.” This duet between Thuillier on tuba and Anthony Caillet on euphonium grooves with the energy of a band four times their number, and finds both playing their hearts out throughout this joyful segue into “Un Printemps dans l’assiette.” Here Thuillier and Caillet are joined by trumpeter Gilles Mercier and trombonist Nicolas Vallade. The mood is altogether whimsical yet rigorous, showcasing the musicians’ freedom of expression and the rock-solid foundations of their craft, as well as the fullness of Thuillier’s narrative power. It ends with kisses, as if bidding us farewell.

Each world Emler creates can be counted on for being vivaciously resolute, but in this case he has written for a soloist who understands that inner drive in a most focused way. A dose of joy when we need it most.

Andy Emler MegaOctet: A moment for… (RJAL 397032)

| Tyran Grillo

Cover

Andy Emler MegaOctet
A moment for…

Andy Emler piano, conductor
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Eric Echampard drums
François Thuillier tuba
François Verly marimba, percussion
Laurent Dehors tenor saxophone
Guillaume Orti alto saxophone
Philippe Sellam alto saxophone
Laurent Blondiau trumpet
Recording, mixing and mastering, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-fontaines, France
Recorded December 21/22, 2017 and mixed February 28 & March 1, 2018 by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at La Buissonne Mastering Studio
Steinway grand piano tuned and prepared by Alain Massonneau
Drums technician: David Grail
Produced by Gérard de Haro and RJAL for La Buissonne and La Compagnie aime l ‘air
Release date: October 5, 2018

Andy Emler returns to both the pianist and composer’s chair with his MegaOctet for a session of fresh, awesome material. Those who’ve followed Emler and his aptly named ensemble’s journey thus far will know that expectations are only made to be surpassed. A moment for… delivers, and then some.

One look at the set list and you’ll notice grammatical particles orphaned after many of the titles. While some, like “5 Series… of,” may seem like incomplete thoughts, there’s nothing incomplete in the album’s balance of airy grammar and deep punctuation. “Move out… if” serves up a smorgasbord of what Emler and friends are capable of at their collective best: rhythmically and melodically satisfying music that grabs us by the hands and swings until left and right become indistinguishable. Percussionist François Verly steps lithely across the marimba like feet over hot coals and sets up the seedier atmosphere of “Dirty Mood… so.” This tune meshes well with Emler’s ability to craft forward-moving vehicles and includes a choice solo by the one and only François Thuillier. The tuba master engages in hi-res expositions in “Move in… or”’ and “Flight Back… and,” the latter noteworthy for its punch of theatrical voices.

The rhythm section of bassist Claude Tchamitchian and drummer Eric Echampard shores up the tide of “Stand-Up and… blow,” the watery feel of which spurs along the vessel of Laurent Dehors’s soulful tenor saxophone. That tides reaches neap status in the title track, where patience and honesty rule the day. This leaves us to devices of “By the Way,” a caravan ride across a desert of horns who build (as they always do) to peak performance.

A moment for… is both music of and about the moment. It’s also significant for showing the MegaOctet at its most synergistic. Working as one body, Emler and his crew do nothing without consideration of the family. This is their mission statement.

Andy Emler: Running backwards (RJAL 397028)

| Tyran Grillo

Cover

Andy Emler
Running backwards

Andy Emler piano
Marc Ducret electric guitar
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Eric Echampard drums
Recorded live at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, on November 17/18, 2016 by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier
Mixed at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro and Andy Emler
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne and la Compagnie aime l’air
Release date: May 19, 2017

After two magnificent albums with his powerhouse MegaOctet, pianist-composer Andy Emler strips his adaptive profile down to its essentials alongside guitarist Marc Ducret, bassist Claude Tchamitchian, and drummer Eric Echampard. What he loses in numbers he makes up for in variety, spanning the gamut from ambient to postmodern funk at the flick of a switch.

Ducret is a detail-oriented guitarist whose microscopically attuned improvisations somewhat recall those of Derek Bailey. His, however, are possessed of a uniquely lyrical quality that marks the surfaces of everything they touch with honest fingerprints. His “Sphinx 2” opens the record unaccompanied before the quartet jumps into fine form on the title track. In unison with Emler’s right hand, he exudes quantum energy. Tchamitchian flexes and breathes at the center of it all, while Echampard pulls out all the stops to let every cylinder breathe with combustion. Soloing across the board is confident yet leaves plenty of room for the listener to unplug and unwind. And speaking of unplugging, Ducret himself goes acoustic in “Sad and beautiful” (also the title of Emler’s previous trio outing for La Buissonne) for a delicate yet emotionally direct sound. Here, as in “Marche dans l’autre sens,” guitar and piano banter like siblings, while “Lève toi et… Marc” finds them molding each other into a dynamic rollercoaster—out of water into flame and back again.

As one often finds in Emler’s oeuvre, quiet seeds yield phenomenal trees and vice versa. The hushed cymbals of “Turn around and don’t look back,” for one, predict an interlocking storm. The bass intro of “Watch your back, Darwin… I mean,” for another, tips the band’s finest synergy into a lyrical twist, laying its head in anticipation of sweet rest.

Andy Emler MegaOctet: Obsession 3 (RJAL 397024)

| Tyran Grillo

Cover

Andy Emler MegaOctet
Obsession 3

Andy Emler piano
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Eric Echampard drums
Laurent Blondiau trumpet
Guillaume Orti alto saxophone
Philippe Sellam alto saxophone
Laurent Dehors tenor saxophone
François Thuillier tuba
François Verly percussion
Recorded live at Studios La Buissonne on December 16/17, 2014 by Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard
Mixing by Gérard de Haro and Andy Emler at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard
Release date: October 16, 2015

Andy Emler and his MegaOctet return to La Buissonne for Round 2. Despite being the ensemble’s seventh album overall, it feels as fresh as a debut. After the wonders of E total, one can both rightly expect and be surprised by what takes place here. That same feeling of world building is present, but with an even stronger fortification of purpose, of which the tone is dutifully set in “Tribalurban 1.” Emler’s ability to mesh stark dynamic contrasts—from whispers to shouts—has never sounded so organic, and elicits an interlocking of horns and piano that ends with laughter from the band: a brief insight into an underlying camaraderie.

Though recorded in-studio, the album comes across as a live gig—an impression fully implied by announcement of the musicians one by one in the concluding “Die coda.” Before arriving at that whimsical conclusion, we’re introduced to an anatomy of melodically well-toned muscles. The campiness of “Doctor solo” (grounded in the playfulness of my favorite musician in the bunch, tuba master François Thuillier) is echoed in such exciting highlights as “Balallade 2,” in which trumpeter Laurent Blondiau soars high above a vast continent of ideas. Blondiau further delights in “Trois total,” the big band-leaning sound of which gives the listener a bear hug.

The opening splash of “La Megaruse” sets up a fleet-footed run across water by François Verly on marimba. Drummer Eric Echampard and bassist Claude Tchamitchian keep step along the shore, sustaining the same level of uplift from dawn to dusk. This and the 16.5-minute “Tribalurban 2” are phenomenal showcases for the reedmen as well, each lighting a match in that warm kindling only the 70s could have inspired.

If Obsession 3 were a dealer’s table, then I guarantee you wouldn’t find a single poker face among Emler and his committed associates. Instead, they show their smiles and willingly forfeit their advantage, laying down their hands with glee, happier to have played together than won.

Andy Emler MegaOctet: E total (RJAL 397014)

| Tyran Grillo

Cover

Andy Emler MegaOctet
E total

Andy Emler piano
Laurent Blondiau trumpet, flugelhorn
Laurent Dehors tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinets
Thomas de Pourquery alto saxophone and vocal
Philippe Sellam alto saxophone
François Thuillier tuba
Claude Tchamitchian bass
Eric Echampard drums
François Verly marimbas, tabla, percussion
With guest
Elise Caron voice
Recorded and mixed November 2011 and January 2012 at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard
Steinway piano prepared and tuned by Alain Massonneau
Release date: May 2, 2012

Andy Emler presents an ambitious recording with his aptly named MegaOctet. E total is more than an aesthetic choice; it’s a mission statement for the wandering pianist and composer, whose every step activates a melody to be lived under its own name.

The set list is divided in two. Part A takes a mosaic approach to its crafting of themes and variations. And despite the massive breadth of experience and ability represented by the full ensemble, there’s an astonishing tendency toward ambient quietude at key intervals. The opening “Good games,” for instance, begins with a ghostly piano and voice before the musicians throw everything they have into the mix across a chain of associations. Tuba virtuoso François Thuillier has a star solo, one that unleashes a vortex of overtones. The title track opens in kindred intimacy, this time with bassist Claude Tchamitchian’s arco cries, later joined by the tabla of percussionist François Verly, Eric Echampard’s drums, and a wonderfully geometric horn section. Emler, for his part, directs the flow of energies from his keyboard around a solo from tenor saxophonist Laurent Dehors. Among the other pre-intermission notables is “Father Tom,” another rhapsody from stillness that showcases Dehors’s discursive skills, now drawing a thread of clarinet through eclectic modes and ever-higher climbs. “Shit happens” is another dose of bright-eyed humor with muscular reed work and guttural vocals, ending in a drum free-for-all.

Part B consists of only two tracks, but offers the most substantial moments of the album. “Superfrigo” is its deepest groove, made clear and present by Thuillier’s uplift over Emler’s fantastic traction, and “Mirrors” (dedicated to Joe Zawinul) spins a web of breath and beat under the banner of vocalist Elise Caron. Subtle percussion and exquisite detailing make this a ride to remember.

If forced to compare (and for those that care), I might describe this as Carla Bley Big Band meets Tim Berne. Such is its combination of whimsy and angular virtuosity, its balance of left and right, and its ability to answer its own questions.

Andy Emler: For better times (RJAL 397007)

| Tyran Grillo

Cover

Andy Emler
For better times

Andy Emler piano
Recorded and mixed August 2008 at Studios La Buissonne by Nicolas Baillard and Gérard de Haro
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne
Steinway prepared and tuned by Alain Massonneau
Produced by Andy Emler and Gérard de Haro
Release date: November 6, 2008

The La Buissonne debut of pianist Andy Emler is the result of a 15-year friendship with the studio and label director Gérard de Haro, whose encouragement to make a solo album resulted in For better times. It’s a brave and personal session brimming with ideas. Having said that, the result is not a solo album per se. Despite coming from the hands and mind of one performer, multitracking fleshes out Emler’s flexible compositional backbone with well-toned muscles and spontaneous movements. In the opening “There is only one piano left in this world,” we find his instrument taking on the role of drum, backing, and lead, wound like a clock spring and set to mark the passage of time with deep regularity. On top of that he spins a wealth of chimes to titillate the heart and mind. It’s also a meta-statement on the nature of ideas and the tragedy of their erasure. The piano plays on, crying to be heard when silencing threatens to become the norm. In “Fear no more, suffer no more,” he delineates a philosophy of interaction, and in the next two tracks—“Crouch, touch, engage” and “Father and son”—explores the darkest and brightest corners of human relationships. His physical approach gives us a sense of weight and armor, and bids us to strengthen our capacity for love. From the intimate to the grandiose, “Speak up! Tribute for better times” acts out conflict on a global scale, treating the inner strings like a palimpsest for failed arguments. Finally, he leaves on a high note with the dialogic “Let’s create together.” Thus, the ruthlessness of time and those who ignore its lessons is laid out like a meal we fear eating, for to do so would mean admitting our complicity in its creation to begin with. And so, we sing along with Emler, hoping for change, for harmony, and yes, for better times.