It is a female band, which is not common, who gives us this very good album recorded in November 2017: Marie-christine « Kiki » Desplat (cnt, p on Taking a Chance on Love, voc, arr), Sylvette Claudet (cl, bass cl on Down Among the Sheltering Palms, voc), Nathalie Renault (bjo), Claude Jeantet (tu), Catherine « Cajoune » Girard (wbd, voc).

With a whiff of early jazz aroma (George Mitchell, Joe Oliver... ) an often touching cornet sound, good arrangements, pleasant vocal trios, all swinging gently, flexible, engaging... set in an organic sound, with respect to the timbres of the instruments and the general atmosphere. I had never heard Kiki Desplat before, found her playing had a natural drive and her singing had an authentic « Black » quality (vocal on Sugar Blues). She likes to stay in the medium range of the instrument, swings in well balanced phrases, with a lot of flavor. The clarinetist plays her part well, especially when harmonizing. « Cajoune », in a better setting here than on the Sweet Mama cd, grants us with a cheeky rendition of Taking a Chance on Love.

But the cornet player is really the one who pulls off the whole thing: her soloing has matter, particularly in the first few pieces.

I advise you to listen to this CD, it's jazz of today. (Daniel Janissier)

Personally, I hate the expression « old style », the term is reductive - and contains hollow perverse concepts on which it would be a little long to expand - and then we are in the years two thousand and ten, and all jazz that is played is music of its own time, that is to say contemporaneous. I know that there are addicts of the reconstruction, but they only put on an obsolete livery, the original molds have been broken for a long time and nobody has the smallest idea of how the icons of the twenties worked even if certain testimonies allow us to approach these often disconcerting characters.

There remain affinities and influences. There remain the intangible criteria of knowing how to speak a certain language while remaining yourself, the ability to share energy and emotion with an audience, the synergy of the group, the sense of the issues. With all that, a bunch of jazz is possible, the field is vast and you have the choice between a hundred proposals - including this one, which is profiled with tuba and banjo, therefore immediately cataloged « old style » according to the above expression, absurd and irrelevant: Certains L'aiment Chaud has long brought its share of « novelty in tradition » (according to the formula of Wilbur of Paris), and that's it. This is how we enlarge the field.

Everyone knows the Desplat kid, known as Kiki, who pushed her goualante in her juvenile years from her washboard in the Cyril Jazz Band, while starting to cultivate the cornet. We will recognize in her style a certain Bixian influence, but she mostly makes Desplat and it's very good as it is: her cornet playing has a lot of qualities - beautiful sound, a lot of ease - and she has consistency in the improvisation. When she sings, it's more in the likes of Jean Constantin than in the likes of Bessie Smith, whatever the orchestra's arguments may recklessly say; and when she signs the arrangements , she is particularly efficient. Her connivance is evident with his partner Sylvette Claudet, an excellent musician (she is one of the people who can make the wood of the instrument sing) and who goes so far as to skillfully handle the bass clarinet. Collusion also of the banjo-soubassophone tandem formed by Nathalie Renault and Claude Jeantet. As for Shona Taylor, I knew her as a cornettist, she is here at the piano, where she takes on the role of binding the sauce, which she conscientiously fulfills.

Certains L'aiment Chaud has been in action for a long time, and I remember meeting these young ladies, a little tense and then in overalls, during the Jazz Band Ball 1985 at the city hall of the 5th arrondissement. It was then almost the prehistorical stage of this exclusively feminine orchestra who has since sailed with serenity through times that were not always easy. To support each other for so long, friendship had to flow freely, and the first thing we notice in this orchestra (which no longer comes in overalls) is that it exudes the happiness of being together. It is a joyful music, which some fans of pure and hard jazz will undoubtedly find lacking in depth, forgetting that jazz also comes from the music hall and that it is not only about the music: it is also about the show and the entertainment.

So you just have to let go, without asking questions, as did the spectators of the Archipel, a Parisian hall where the programming combines music and cinema and where the album was recorded. Rules of the game: as with any show of which only sound remains, the interest of the listener will experience other variations than that of the spectator: he will feel at times a few lengthy moments throughout this album. But he will also find rewarding moments: the program is well put together, the repertoire often original, some standards are accommodated unexpectedly, and the sirens of the band go here and there towards attractive trios.

As the boss lives in Sweden and her acolytes in Paris, one wonders how one gets the complex mechanics of the clock to work with watch like precision, actually. Information taken, these ladies use the Internet a lot and have a fast ability for understanding... as the Lion said: « Jazzmen are people who think fifty percent faster than others. » Aphorism which also applies to jazzwomen... not to mention that you have to be damn cheeky to lay an arrangement as demanding on Handful of Keys - just that the idea is a challenge - and come deliver it raw on stage, without a safety net and just as if it’s another day at the office. (Laurent Verdeaux)