PLUME feat. Gregory Hutchinson & Geraud Portal & Leonardo Montana - Holding On [CD]

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: JPCD822003
Barcode: 5051083184731
Release Date: 21 Oct 2022
Genre: Jazz

 Plume strikes again. The French-American saxophonist who landed in the French jazz game without warning is back with ‘Holding On’, an album from the post-COVID liberation and an album confirming his talent.
 Driven by an intact urgency, the saxophonist holds firm and signs a record of passion and hope, conviction and commitment, a light in the uncertainty and the darkness of times, carried by the exhilarating drumming of a master of the drums, Gregory Hutchinson.
 Recorded during the pandemic, ‘Holding On’ is the album of deliverance. It radiates an energy that has been contained and restrained for too long. But ‘Holding On’ is also the disc of confirmation. The one that comes, if necessary, to reinforce the idea that Plume’s reputation is not a flash in the pan but one that’s destined to last.
 That the saxophonist chose to record this second album with one of the most famous drummers in the world - Gregory Hutchinson - is an additional sign of his value and his ability to dialogue with the greatest. Raised on the baptismal font of jazz by Ray Brown and Betty Carter, Gregory Hutchinson ranks, in fact, among the great contemporary masters of drums. Revealed with Roy Hargrove in the mid-1990s, he accompanied the late Joe Henderson and singer Dianne Reeves for a long time.
 For the album Plume also chose two musicians he has been playing with for a while - the pianist Leonardo Montana and the bassist Géraud Portal. The pianist is truly versatile, showing extensive stylistic eclecticism in the various projects he is involved in, but it is his interventions as a soloist and his capacity for staying on the edge in each of his solos that makes them constantly surprising. And Géraud Portal has proven over the years his solidness as a bassist, his consistency, his poise, his powerful, venerable sound; he is one of those authoritative musicians who - starting with Jacky Terrasson, who has made him his regular bassist - set the foundation on which the music can
unfold.
 ‘Holding On’ is an album of survival. An album of perseverance and hope, a music of conviction and engagement, a beacon in an ocean of uncertainty and the dark times we live in. If the album Is guided by love and spiritualty in a new arrangement of John Coltrane’s ‘Naima’, ‘Holding On’ takes the listener on a gripping journey that does not end until the final note, a whirlwind of strong emotions and deep humanity.
 The album ends with ‘Yin & Yang’, an alto duet played at breakneck speed in the great jazz tradition of chases, in which Plume spotlights the talents of his colleague Matt Chalk, a saxophonist from Kansas City who has recently settled in Paris and whose playing is full of ardour and presence.

Tracklisting
Naima
Revenge of The Mute Swan
Path of the Moon
Oksana
Holding On (Prelude)
Holding On
Faith in the Unmanifested
Reverence
Yin & Yang

More From This Artist: Geraud Portal Gregory Hutchinson Leonardo Montana PLUME