Released a year after
Carnets de Voyage,
Navré is a honest follow-up to
Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms's (The Dangerous Guyz) first CD. The lineup remains the same and the music continues in the same jazz-meets-rock-meets-avant-garde vein.
Derome's distinctive humor touch is less strong here and a song like "Navré" (Sorry) is downright serious new jazz. "Anchive" has a lot of sparks and would have fit very nicely on the first album. "Train Pour Nuremberg" shares affinities with
André Duchesne's
Locomotive project, but most of the other tunes lack the sense of immediacy and communal fun found on the first album. This is not to say
Navré is a bad CD:
Derome's writing is still very precise, but more refined and cerebral, enjoyable but not on the same level. Highlights include the slow contrapuntal piece "Pantin" and "Lindau," gently bringing the album to an end.
Navré was reissued in 1998 as part of the three-CD box set 1994-1996. ~ François Couture