1. ZigZag Blues
2. Course pour Suite
3. Ra Bentr'ol
4. Wake Up
5. Free Woman
6. Travel Story
7. Ekena
8. Deep Red
9. RAB
10. Histoire De
11. Jungle
12. Entre Deux Rêves
13. Tôty Come Bach
Céline Bonacina - Baritone sax, alto sax (track 11), soprano
sax (track 12), vocals
Nicolas Garnier - Electric bass
Hary Ratsimbazafy - Drums
Nguyên Lê - Electric guitar (tracks 3, 7, 11, 12)
The baritone saxophone hardly seems a suitable instrument for ladies,
as its bulkiness might seem excessive for their tender frames (I'm
being deliberately non-PC here!). Yet there have been some notable
female exponents of the instrument, including Britain's Kathy Stobart
and French musician Céline Bonacina manages it extremely well,
playing with fluency and imagination. Like another baritone saxist
- Gerry Mulligan - she here dispenses with a pianist. She even plays
duets with herself, using double-tracking to either sing along wordlessly
with her baritone sax (as in the opening track) or to play duets on
the saxophone (as in Course pour Suite). In Deep Red
she plays entirely alone, exploring the heights and depths of the
baritone.
She is not afraid to extend the range of what we are used to hearing
from the baritone sax - going into high-pitched screams on Course
de Suite, and making outlandish sounds in Wake Up. Céline
plays the baritone with so much ease that you might think it was a
tenor sax. Indeed, she moves to the soprano sax for Entre deux
Rêves. On Jungle, she goes onto the alto sax, which
she plays with the same sort of lyricism and adventure as she brings
to the baritone.
One doesn't notice the lack of a pianist, as the bassist and drummer
are so expert. Besides, Nguyên Lê's full-toned guitar
often sounds like electronic keyboards, and his presence on four tracks
adds to the variety of the album. It was actually Nguyên who
made the Act label's owner, Siggi Loch, aware of Céline's talent,
and she has admitted that the guitarist has markedly influenced her.
Céline is also a considerable composer, having written nine
of the dozen tracks on this CD. The most striking are the appropriately-titled
ZigZag Blues, the slow, reflective Free Woman, and the
stimulating Ekena, whose exotic rhythms may reflect the seven
years that Céline spent on Réunion, an island in the Indian
Ocean near Madagascar. Her drummer, Hary Ratsaimbazafy, actually comes
from Madagascar (enjoy his short but animated solos on Histoire
de).
This is Céline's second CD (the first was Vue d'en Haut)
but there must be many more great albums to come from her.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Act 9498-2
