Michel Graillier
Encyclopedia
Michel Graillier was a French jazz pianist, born 18 October 1946 in Lens (Pas-de-Calais), died 11 February 2003 in Paris
.
After some preparatory classes, he enrolled at the ISEN
in Lille
,in their engineering school where he met the bassist Didier Levallet
through whom he discovered jazz. In 1968, with a diploma in electrical engineering under his belt, he moved to Paris. There he played in clubs, most notably at the “Caméléon”, in a trio with Aldo Romano
and Jean-François Jenny-Clark
. He made his first recording in 1969 with Steve Lacy
. Thereafter, he accompanied the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty
for three years. His first disc with the label, Agartha Records, appeared in 1970 on which he was accompanied by Alby Cullaz and Bernard Lubat. The same he year he recorded "Pianos Puzzle" with Georges Arvanitas
, René Urtreger
and Maurice Vander. After some “personal problems", he withdrew from performing for a period of time.
In 1972, he was engaged by the drummer Christian Vander
to play piano in his group “Magma” which he did for two years. Following that, he played with Christian Escoudé
, François Jeanneau and others. For several years, he was the regular pianist for the club “Riverbop»”. Here he had the opportunity to play with numerous musicians, including Americans who were in Paris on tour such as Philly Joe Jones
and Steve Grossman
among others. After that he appeared at the club “Dréher” in Paris and at “Magnetic Terrasse”, usually in trio with Alby Cullaz and Christian Vander
, but also with Barney Wilen
or Jacques Pelzer.
In 1977 saxophonist and flutist Jacques Pelzer, whose daughter Micheline Graillier had married, introduced him to Chet Baker
. For the next ten years Graillier accompanied the trumpeter on a regular basis.
In addition, he played with Éric Le Lann
, Philip Catherine
, Jacques Thollot, Richard Raux, Jean-Pierre Debarbat, Alain Jean-Marie, Paolo Fresu
and Pharoah Sanders
among others. He also appeared regularly in duo with bassist Riccardo Del Fra, and in trio with Alby Cullaz and Simon Goubert.
In the course of his career, he also accompanied the singers Julos Beaucarne, Jacques Bertin
, Maxime le Forestier
, Eddy Mitchell
, Stéphanie Crawford, Elisabeth Caumont and Stella Vander
.
He died in February 2003.
, Bill Evans
and McCoy Tyner
, and somewhat later Herbie Hancock
in the Miles Davis quintet.
But Graillier has also said of his influences, “Of course, the influences are there, but it is not worth talking about them, they are part of the normal evolution of any musician. A musician simply wants to play, regardless of his knowledge of the language. He is therefore obliged to learn the language that others have developed over decades and this language becomes more and more intelligible over time, just as a kid learns to write. Above all, the influence of the great pianists and musicians is mainly of value in showing one how to find one’s own voice."
In his short autobiography, Le Monde la Musique (The World and it’s Music), Graillier chose to cite a phrase from Pascal Anquetil relative to his style, “There floats through all his music, a dreamy and sweetly drifting mist. A climate of peace that restores one on a summer night without knowing exactly why.”
Xavier Prévost wrote in the ‘’Dictionnaire du Jazz’’, “Michel Graillier constructed an internal dialogue of breathing that knew how to make room for silence.”
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Biography
From four to eighteen years of age, Michel Graillier studied classical piano in Lens. During adolescence, he appeared on the scene for the first time as a drummer with the amateur yéyé group, ‘’Les Chaps’’ (“The Guys”).After some preparatory classes, he enrolled at the ISEN
Isen
The river Isen occurs in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth.The Isen began in the southern Misty Mountains, first flowing south through the fortress of Isengard to the White Mountains, where it abruptly bent west and flowed to the sea of Belegaer...
in Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
,in their engineering school where he met the bassist Didier Levallet
Didier Levallet
Didier Levallet is a French jazz double bassist, composer, arranger and leader.A self-taught bassist, Levallet made his professional debut in Paris in 1969, working with such artists as Ted Curson, Johnny Griffin, Kenny Clarke, Mal Waldron, Hank Mobley, Archie Shepp, Tony Oxley, Steve Lacy, Harry...
through whom he discovered jazz. In 1968, with a diploma in electrical engineering under his belt, he moved to Paris. There he played in clubs, most notably at the “Caméléon”, in a trio with Aldo Romano
Aldo Romano
Aldo Romano is a jazz drummer. He also started a rock group in 1971.-Biography:He moved to France as a child and by the 1950s he was playing guitar and drums professionally in Paris, but his career gained notice when he started working with Don Cherry in 1963. He recorded with Steve Lacy and...
and Jean-François Jenny-Clark
Jean-François Jenny-Clark
Jean-François "J.F." Jenny-Clark was a French double bass player who appeared, estimated as one of the most important bass players of European jazz....
. He made his first recording in 1969 with Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
. Thereafter, he accompanied the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...
for three years. His first disc with the label, Agartha Records, appeared in 1970 on which he was accompanied by Alby Cullaz and Bernard Lubat. The same he year he recorded "Pianos Puzzle" with Georges Arvanitas
Georges Arvanitas
Georges Arvanitas was a jazz pianist and organist.- Life and career :He began life as a child of Greek immigrants from Constantinople. At the age of four he began studying piano and initially trained as a classical. However he switched to jazz some time in his teens and would be known for jazz in...
, René Urtreger
René Urtreger
-Biography:Urtreger was born in Paris and began his piano studies at the age of four, studying privately first, and then at the Conservatory. He studied with an orientation toward jazz, playing in a small Parisian club, the "Sully d' Auteil." Conducted by Hubert Damisch, the Sully boasted an...
and Maurice Vander. After some “personal problems", he withdrew from performing for a period of time.
In 1972, he was engaged by the drummer Christian Vander
Christian Vander
Christian Vander may refer to:*Christian Vander *Christian Vander , German football player...
to play piano in his group “Magma” which he did for two years. Following that, he played with Christian Escoudé
Christian Escoudé
Christian Escoudé is a jazz guitarist from France. He grew up in Angoulême and is of Romani people descent on his father's side. His father was a guitarist too and influenced by Django Reinhardt. Christian became a musician at 15 and starting in 1972 he worked in a trio with Aldo Romano. By the...
, François Jeanneau and others. For several years, he was the regular pianist for the club “Riverbop»”. Here he had the opportunity to play with numerous musicians, including Americans who were in Paris on tour such as Philly Joe Jones
Philly Joe Jones
Joseph Rudolph Jones was a Philadelphia-born United States jazz drummer, known as the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet.Philly Joe Jones was often confused with another influential jazz drummer, Jo Jones...
and Steve Grossman
Steve Grossman
Steve Grossman is an American jazz fusion and hard bop saxophonist.Grossman was notably Wayne Shorter's replacement in Miles Davis' jazz-fusion band. Then, from 1971 to 1973, he was in Elvin Jones's band....
among others. After that he appeared at the club “Dréher” in Paris and at “Magnetic Terrasse”, usually in trio with Alby Cullaz and Christian Vander
Christian Vander (musician)
Christian Vander is a French drummer, musician, and founder of the band Magma. Besides his work with Magma, he has also performed solo, with the Christian Vander Trio and Christian Vander Quartet, and in Offering....
, but also with Barney Wilen
Barney Wilen
Barney Wilen was a French tenor and soprano saxophonist and jazz composer.Wilen was born in Nice; his father was an American dentist turned inventor, and his mother was French. He began performing in clubs in Nice after being encouraged by Blaise Cendrars who was a friend of his mother...
or Jacques Pelzer.
In 1977 saxophonist and flutist Jacques Pelzer, whose daughter Micheline Graillier had married, introduced him to Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
. For the next ten years Graillier accompanied the trumpeter on a regular basis.
In addition, he played with Éric Le Lann
Éric Le Lann
Éric Le Lann is a French jazz trumpeter.He moved to Paris in 1977 where he had his professional debut and gained notice in 1980. He has worked with Aldo Romano, Henri Salvador, and others. He also did music for films including those of Bertrand Tavernier...
, Philip Catherine
Philip Catherine
Philip Catherine is a Belgian jazz guitarist.-Biography:He was born in London from an English mother and Belgian father....
, Jacques Thollot, Richard Raux, Jean-Pierre Debarbat, Alain Jean-Marie, Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu is a trumpet and flugelhorn jazz player, as well as an arranger of music, and music composer.-Career:Fresu was born in Berchidda, Sardinia. He picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the band Bernardo de Muro in his home town Berchidda...
and Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
among others. He also appeared regularly in duo with bassist Riccardo Del Fra, and in trio with Alby Cullaz and Simon Goubert.
In the course of his career, he also accompanied the singers Julos Beaucarne, Jacques Bertin
Jacques Bertin
Jacques Bertin was a French cartographer and theorist, known from his book Semiologie Graphique , edited in 1967...
, Maxime le Forestier
Maxime Le Forestier
Maxime Le Forestier is a French singer.He was born in Paris to an English father and a French mother who had lived in England. He had two older sisters, Anne and Catherine....
, Eddy Mitchell
Eddy Mitchell
Eddy Mitchell is a French singer and actor. He began his career in the late 1950s, with the group Les Chaussettes Noires , taking his name from the American expatriate tough-guy actor Eddie Constantine...
, Stéphanie Crawford, Elisabeth Caumont and Stella Vander
Stella Vander
Stella Vander is a French singer and musician.-Early years:Born in Paris into a family of Polish immigrants, she began writing music in the early sixties together with her uncle Maurice Chorenslup. Their songs were parodies of the Yé-yé style that was popular at the time...
.
He died in February 2003.
Style
According to Graillier, among the pianists who most influenced him were Bud PowellBud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
and McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
, and somewhat later Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
in the Miles Davis quintet.
But Graillier has also said of his influences, “Of course, the influences are there, but it is not worth talking about them, they are part of the normal evolution of any musician. A musician simply wants to play, regardless of his knowledge of the language. He is therefore obliged to learn the language that others have developed over decades and this language becomes more and more intelligible over time, just as a kid learns to write. Above all, the influence of the great pianists and musicians is mainly of value in showing one how to find one’s own voice."
In his short autobiography, Le Monde la Musique (The World and it’s Music), Graillier chose to cite a phrase from Pascal Anquetil relative to his style, “There floats through all his music, a dreamy and sweetly drifting mist. A climate of peace that restores one on a summer night without knowing exactly why.”
Xavier Prévost wrote in the ‘’Dictionnaire du Jazz’’, “Michel Graillier constructed an internal dialogue of breathing that knew how to make room for silence.”
Awards
- Prix Django Reinhardt Prize of the Académie du Jazz, 1978
- Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros, jazz, 1983
- Grand Prix du DisqueGrand Prix du DisqueThe Grand Prix du Disque is the premier French award for musical recordings. The award was inaugurated by l'Académie Charles Cros in 1948 and offers prizes in various categories. The categories vary from year to year, and multiple awards are often made in any one category in the same year...
, 2000 - Prix Boris Vian de l'Académie du Jazz, 2000
Discography
- Pianos Puzzle - SaravahSaravahSaravah is a French record label founded by musician Pierre Barouh in 1965.Some artists who have released albums on Saravah include:*Brigitte Fontaine*Areski Belkacem*Jacques Higelin*Pierre Akendengué*Jean-Roger Caussimon...
, 1970, reedited in 1991 - Agartha - SaravahSaravahSaravah is a French record label founded by musician Pierre Barouh in 1965.Some artists who have released albums on Saravah include:*Brigitte Fontaine*Areski Belkacem*Jacques Higelin*Pierre Akendengué*Jean-Roger Caussimon...
, 1970 - Ad lib - Musica 3010, 1976
- Libra, 1976
- In a Spring Way, 1978
- Toutes ces choses - Open, 1979
- Dream Drops - OWL Records, 1981, réédité en 1992
- Oiseaux de nuit in duo with Alain Jean-Marie - Chant du Monde, 1991, reedited in 2004
- Fairly - The Complete Session - Chant du Monde, 1991, reedited in 2005
- Fairly - Chant du Monde, 1991
- Portrait in Black and White in duo with Alain Jean-Marie - Emarcy, 1991, reedited in 2005
- Sweet Smile - 1996, reedited by Sketch in 2006
- Soft Talk - Sketch, 2000