GRIO

If GRIO – GRand Impérial Orchestra – refers to Africa in its rhythms, its name and its rearrangements, it keeps jazz as its horizon. With the title of this first album, Music is Our Mistress, it even places itself under the high patronage of Duke Ellington (and his famous autobiography Music is My Mistress) and Ornette Coleman (and his no less famous This Is Our Music). To these two striking spirits, one could also add Charles Mingus for the love of the pocket big band or the Liberation Music Orchestra of Carla Bley and Charlie Haden for “those themes that can sound like hymns”. And even, on ‘Gomorra Pulse’, the hypnotic circles of Steve Reich.

Beyond the references, influences and tributes, GRIO is above all about humanity. In addition to the four founding members of the Impérial (Gérald Chevillon, Damien Sabatier, Joachim Florent and Antonin Leymarie), there are four newcomers to the collective: trumpeters Aymeric Avice and Frédéric Roudet, pianist Aki Rissanen and trombonist Simon Girard. Newcomers” who are not really new because they have often crossed paths with the members of l’Impérial with Jean-Louis, François Courneloup, Radiation 10, la Baskour… More than companions on the road: friends.

Because l’Impérial is “friendship that extends into music and music that extends friendship”. Perhaps that’s also why Music is Our Mistress is so generous and hectic. And that it abounds in mischief, twists and telepathic questions and answers. It’s because it defends spiritual jazz in the original sense of the word: sculpted by true soul brothers.