An unusual project for an unusual trio. In 2017, the cellist Vincent Courtois and his saxophonist friends Robin Fincker and Daniel Erdmann had already taken on film music composers with the album Bandes Originales. Three years later, their new target is the writer Jack London. Courtois, who had the honesty to admit he only recently found out about the author of The Call of the Wild and Martin Eden, and therefore has not been a fan since he was a youngster, approached the subject with respect, originality and seriousness. “Since 2016, his dense and often autobiographical work, so rich and powerful, has not stopped following me, accompanying my everyday life, my travels and therefore the music that I play.”
What followed was a tour in America tracing the life of this American literary hero and the desire to record an album inspired by his work in his home of Oakland, California. The trio even met with the great-granddaughter of the writer in his old hideout, now a historic park in the Sonoma Valley. Furthermore, Courtois, Erdmann and Fincker improvised at his resting place, near to the ruins of his old ranch which went up in flames, an emotional episode which illustrates the cover of this Love of Life... At the helm of this captivating project is a working relationship which is over a decade old. The intimate style of this European jazz conserves its DNA and its values which they bring to a different world with this project. Courtois and his saxophonists create grandiose sonic spaces while juggling different tensions, hypnotise with repetition and digression and manage to bring light to their subject matter with a certain amount of originality. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz