Exile

Editor's info:
"There seems to be a lot fewer flute players in the concentric worlds of jazz and free improvisation than there are people who play the flute. Whether it's due to the demands of the instrument or its unique reputation as (to mix musical metaphors) a s "second fiddle." It seems often to be used to connote a softness, a femininity perhaps, rather than being allowed to charge and roam freely like the saxophone - the usual first instrument for the would-be flautist - giving it a bad reputation among at least some of the True Believers.

There are exceptions, of course. Nicole Mitchell plays flute exclusively and Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill both merit mention. And flautists aren't only from the Windy City, of course. Let us also remember Dolphy and Rahsaan as examples to prove the rule, and add to that list a gentleman from France named Jerome Bourdellon.

Bourdellon has worked with Mitchell, as well as Thomas Buckner and Joe McPhee to name but a few American playing partners, but he remains too little recognized outside of Europe. His tone is assured, solid, showing that the instrument is capable of more than just whispering. He is heard on this record playing across the flue family, from the piccolo and C flue to the bass and contrabass. He picks up the bass clarinet on a couple of tracks as well, but fortunately his voice proves to be just as powerful through the reed. At midpoint, we even hear his raspy guttural vocalizations executed while playing the bas clarinet, making for a perfectly unmatched pairing with his duet partner. Joelle Leandre's own urgent operatics alongside his intonations as both are playing fervently at the session's peak gives the impression of a quartet, or even a crowd.

Leandre, the acclaimed double-bassist, needs no introduction but deserves one nevertheless. She is simply a master of the form. Her early associations with the composers Pierre Boulez, John Cage and Giacinto Scelci, and her later emergence as an improviser after meeting the likes of Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, and Irene Schweizer in the European free improvisation scene cast her as a uniquely educated, pedigreed even, artist. She has pursued the music with an honesty and determination for more than thirty years. [....]"-Kurt Gottschalk, from the liner notes