Migrations (Odd Sound)
Jacques Kuba Séguin
Released June 14, 2019
Juno Award Winner Jazz Album of the Year: Solo 2020
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mCd3_1gkl_lNxPz7i0mFnmW5sawwq82EU
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2i4J8p2YFCxIiS2FrzQRwp?si=Nq3JTURhTx6cNuUYQROQ3g
About:
Announcing Migrations, the exciting new album from the multi-talented trumpeter, Jacques Kuba Séguin, one of Montreal’s most adventurous musicians.
Migrations is a collection of compositions based on interviews with people from various cultural communities in Quebec, Canada. Séguin’s music is cinematic, direct, and dynamic. It encourages an openness to others, something that is built into the history of the artistic medium Séquin loves best: jazz music.
This new project is born of a desire to return to a more classic form of jazz. Séguin has gathered a group of experienced, like-minded musicians, each with a strong voice to add to the musical dialogue. Migrations represents a form of jazz that will sound familiar to listeners, but also brings with it a renewed, free, personal, and uniquely emotional approach to the storied genre.
A winner of the 2012-13 Radio-Canada Revelations prize, Séguin is more and more present on the Quebec stage. In 2015, he was nominated for two ADISQ awards: best arranger and jazz album of the year for L’élévation du point de chute and, in 2016, for Litania Projekt with the Quatuor Bozzini in the same two categories. In 2015, he was nominated for a Prix Opus for jazz album of the year and for jazz and world music concert of the year for his 2014 Montreal International Jazz Festival show. An engaging showman, Séguin is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant Canadian trumpeters of his generation. Migrations is sure to solidify his sterling musical reputation.
Track Listing:
1. Hymne 08:09
2. Origine 06:08
3. L’écrivain 09:48
4. Première neige (You’re not alone) 05:05
5. Choucoune 06:25
6. I remember Marie in April 07:29
7. Mosaïques 05:50
Personnel:
Jacques Kuba Sequin: trumpet
Yannick Rieu: tenor saxophone
Olivier Salazar: vibraphone
Jean-Michael Pilc
Adrian Vedady: bass
Kevin Warren: drums
Recorded January 18 and 19, 2019, at Studio 270, Montréal
Produced by Jacques Kuba Séguin
Photography: Raphaël Ouellet
Design: Florencia Torres
Review:
Montreal-based trumpeter/composer Jacques Kuba
Sequin’s Migrations celebrates
people from a wide array of cultural communities in Quebec, Canada. The
exploration of those multicultural groups results in Sequin’s dynamically
sculpted sound that is cohesive, celebratory and anthemic. His investigative
interviews of the people he is celebrating here reveal a conglomeration of
unabashed optimists, glowing with the joy of life. The music doesn’t lie.
The instrumentation—a sort of Modern Jazz Quartet rhythm section—vibes, piano,
bass, drums—paints an understated backdrop for Sequin’s warm trumpet and
Yannick Rieu’s gutsy tenor sax. The music is all composed and arranged by
Sequin, and he’s done a first rate job of crafting a distinctive sound with a
start to finish continuity of vision. Jean-Michel Pilc’s piano
and Olivier Salazar’s vibraphone create a softly luminous blur. Sequin’s
trumpet tone is direct and succinct, and the experience of a straight-through
listen of the disc is similar to that of sitting down to a European movie that
features soft lighting—sun dappled in the outdoor scenes, sunlight filtered
through translucent curtains on the indoor shots.
With Migrations Sequin creates a signature sound, much in the style
of that of the late Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, minus the melancholy. “I
Remember Marie In April” bounces with a jubilant mood, “Hymne”
sings a joyful and pious prayer; and “Premiere Neige (You’re Not
Alone)” says that everything is going to be alright.
Migrations serves as a beautiful soundtrack to the diversity of the
cultural landscape of Quebec—an engaging, first-rate jazz album.
Dan McClenaghan (All About Jazz)
