Un Drame Musical Instantané
Encyclopedia
Un Drame Musical Instantané, since its creation in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé
, Bernard Vitet
and Francis Gorgé, has decided to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they try to renew every time they play.
(synthetizer player Birgé and guitarist Gorgé, both authors of the album
, Défense de); jazz
(trumpeter Vitet who founded the first free jazz
band in France, together with François Tusques, as well as Michel Portal
who played with many American and European jazzmen); classical modern music; as well as movies or world news; they were the first in France to give a new impetus to live music on silent movies.
Twenty four creations were in their repertoire, among which were Caligari by Robert Wiene
, La glace à trois faces and La chute de la Maison Usher by Jean Epstein
, The passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Dreyer, Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov
, and L'argent by Marcel L'Herbier
. After having improvised freely for many years, they led a fifteen piece orchestra from 1981 to 1986, and since 1989 they have produced multimedia shows (live video remix on a giant screen, fireworks, choreographies), but their most convincing musical theater was mainly audio, which they have called "blind cinema". The Drame used to mix acoustic and electronic instruments in real time as well as original instruments built by Vitet (a reed trumpet, a multiphonic French horn, a variable tension double-bass, a giant balafon with frying pans and flower pots keyboard, a fire organ, plexiglas flutes, etc.)
After Francis Gorgé has left the band in 1992, Birgé and Vitet went on recording and producing with other musicians close to the "family" such as percussionist, Gérard Siracusa, or multi-instrumentalist, Hélène Sage. Un Drame Musical Instantané which has always remain independent (they have always owned their own recording studio and record label GRRR) stopped its activities in 2008, Birgé remaining the only one on the music scene.
Jean-Jacques Birgé
Jean-Jacques Birgé is an independent French musician and filmmaker, at once music composer , film director , multimedia author , sound designer Jean-Jacques Birgé is an independent French musician and filmmaker, at once music composer (co-founder of Un Drame Musical Instantané which with he records...
, Bernard Vitet
Bernard Vitet
Bernard Vitet, born on May 26, 1934 in Paris, is a French trumpetist and composer, co-founder of the first free jazz band in France together with François Tusques, Michel Portal Unit and Un Drame Musical Instantané with Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé in 1976.He belongs to the first meeting...
and Francis Gorgé, has decided to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they try to renew every time they play.
History
They borrowed their sources from rockRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
(synthetizer player Birgé and guitarist Gorgé, both authors of the album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, Défense de); jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
(trumpeter Vitet who founded the first free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
band in France, together with François Tusques, as well as Michel Portal
Michel Portal
Michel Portal is a composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.Portal studied clarinet at the Conservatoire de Paris...
who played with many American and European jazzmen); classical modern music; as well as movies or world news; they were the first in France to give a new impetus to live music on silent movies.
Twenty four creations were in their repertoire, among which were Caligari by Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene was an important film director of the German silent cinema.Robert Wiene was born in Breslau, as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Carl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor, but Robert Wiene at first studied law at the University of Berlin. In 1908 he also...
, La glace à trois faces and La chute de la Maison Usher by Jean Epstein
Jean Epstein
Jean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Epstein directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the...
, The passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Dreyer, Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
David Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
, and L'argent by Marcel L'Herbier
Marcel L'Herbier
Marcel L'Herbier, Légion d'honneur, was a French film-maker, who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total...
. After having improvised freely for many years, they led a fifteen piece orchestra from 1981 to 1986, and since 1989 they have produced multimedia shows (live video remix on a giant screen, fireworks, choreographies), but their most convincing musical theater was mainly audio, which they have called "blind cinema". The Drame used to mix acoustic and electronic instruments in real time as well as original instruments built by Vitet (a reed trumpet, a multiphonic French horn, a variable tension double-bass, a giant balafon with frying pans and flower pots keyboard, a fire organ, plexiglas flutes, etc.)
After Francis Gorgé has left the band in 1992, Birgé and Vitet went on recording and producing with other musicians close to the "family" such as percussionist, Gérard Siracusa, or multi-instrumentalist, Hélène Sage. Un Drame Musical Instantané which has always remain independent (they have always owned their own recording studio and record label GRRR) stopped its activities in 2008, Birgé remaining the only one on the music scene.
Discography
- Trop d'adrénaline nuit (GRRR, France), 1977, reissue + bonus, 2001
- Rideau ! (GRRR), 1980
- Pas de cadeau in 18 surprises pour Noël (DeQualité, France), 1981
- À travail égal salaire égal, for orchestra (GRRR), 1982
- Under The Channel in In Fractured Silence (United Dairies, GB), 1983
- Les bons contes font les bons amis, for orchestra (GRRR), 1983
- L'uniforme in mc Unique (France), 1984
- L'homme à la caméra, for orchestra (GRRR), 1984
- Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari in mc Bad Alchemy (Germany), 1985
- Carnage, incl. La Bourse et la vie, N.O.P. dir. Yves Prin (GRRR), 1985
- French Resistance in Dry Lungs II (Placebo, USA), 1986
- Interview in mc Planeta (France), 1986
- Fear of Vacancy in Journey Into Pain (mc BST, Japan), 1986
- Don't Lock The Cage in Dry Lungs III (Placebo, USA), 1987
- L'hallali, avec Frank Royon Le Mée, Dominique Fonfrède, Martine Viard, Louis Hagen-William, L'Itinéraire, dir. Boris de Vinogradov, incl. opera-bouffe La Fosse (GRRR), 1987
- Sous les mers (GRRR), 1988
- Qui vive ? (GRRR), 1989
- Der Falsche Mann in Out of Depression (Germany)
- Le futur abyssal in Mouvements (La légende des voix, France), 1990
- Le K, text by Dino BuzzatiDino BuzzatiDino Buzzati-Traverso was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.-Life:Buzzati was born at San Pellegrino,...
with Richard BohringerRichard BohringerRichard Bohringer is a French actor.-Personal life:Bohringer was born in Moulins, Allier. He is the father of actress Romane Bohringer, and has two other children, Richard and Lou.-Career:...
(GRRR, reissue Auvidis), Nomination at 9th Victoires de la MusiqueVictoires de la MusiqueVictoires de la musique , is an annual French award ceremony that recognizes the best musical artists of the year.- Male artist of the year :*1985 : Michel Jonasz*1986 : Jean-Jacques Goldman*1987 : Johnny Hallyday...
, 1990-93 - Pale Driver Killed By A Swallow On A Country Road in Dry Lungs IV (Subterranean RecordsSubterranean RecordsSubterranean Records is an independent record label based in San Francisco, California. Founded by Steve Tupper and a then partner, Michael Fox in 1979, it focused on that city's underground punk and industrial music scene....
, USA), 1991 - Le fond de l'âme effraie : Air Cut in Atomic Zen (Dedali Opera, Japan), 1991
- North Eating South Starving in A Gnomean Haigonaimean (Johnny Blue, Portugal), 1991
- Jeune fille qui tombe... tombe, text by Dino BuzzatiDino BuzzatiDino Buzzati-Traverso was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.-Life:Buzzati was born at San Pellegrino,...
with Daniel Laloux (In Situ, France), 1991 - Kind Lieder, nine songs which hurt (GRRR), 1991
- Rien ne va plus in Dry Lungs V (Subterranean Records, USA), 1992
- Utopie Standard in Passionnément (Visa, France), 1992
- Urgent Meeting, with Colette Magny, Didier MalherbeDidier MalherbeDidier Antonin Malherbe is a saxophonist and flautist. He was one of the founders of the Canterbury sound band Gong....
, Michel GodardMichel GodardMichel Godard is a French tuba player and jazz musician.Godard was admitted at the age of 18 to the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France. His ability to produce overtones and musicality leaves the listener surprised at how light a seemingly cumbersome tuba can sound...
, Louis SclavisLouis SclavisLouis Sclavis is a French jazz musician. He performs on clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano saxophone in a variety of contexts, including jazz and free jazz...
, Raymond Boni, Gérard Siracusa, Vinko GlobokarVinko GlobokarVinko Globokar is a French avant-garde composer and trombonist of Slovene descent.His work is noted for its use of unconventional and extended techniques, closely allying him to contemporaries Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann...
, Yves RobertYves RobertYves Robert was a French actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.Born in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, in his teens Robert went to Paris to pursue a career in acting, starting with unpaid parts on stage in the city's various theatre workshops. To support himself, he worked at a variety of jobs...
, François Tusques, Denis Colin... (GRRR/No Man’s land), 1992 - Opération Blow Up, with Brigitte FontaineBrigitte FontaineBrigitte Fontaine, born in 1939 in Morlaix in the Brittany region of France, is a singer of avant-garde music. During the course of her career she has employed numerous unusual musical styles, melding rock and roll, folk, jazz, electronica, spoken word poetry and world rhythms...
, Henri TexierHenri TexierHenri Texier, born , is a French jazz double bassist born in Paris.He is perhaps best-known for his 1960s work with Don Cherry and for his 1980s band the "Transatlantik Quartet", which featured Joe Lovano, Steve Swallow and Aldo Romano...
, Luc FerrariLuc FerrariLuc Ferrari was of an Italian heritage but French born composer, particularly noted for his tape music.-Biography:...
, Joëlle LéandreJoëlle LéandreJoëlle Léandre is a double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation....
, Valentin ClastrierValentin ClastrierFrench musician Valentin Clastrier is one of the few performers in the world specializing in contemporary music for the hurdy-gurdy; before Clastrier, the instrument was used primarily in the performance of European Medieval and folk musics....
, René LussierRené LussierRené Lussier is a musician based in the province of Québec, Canada. He is a composer, guitarist, bass guitarist, percussionist, bass clarinetist and singer. Lussier has collaborated with such figures as Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Jean Derome and Robert M. Lepage...
... (GRRR), 1992 - Musica Per Dimagrire in Musica Propiziatoria (Museo Immaginario, Italy), 1993
- Zappeurs-Pompiers 2 in Journal de bord (38e Rugissants, France), 1993
- Crasse-Tignasse, songs for children who like to be frightened (Auvidis, France), 1993
- 3 pieces with Dee Dee BridgewaterDee Dee BridgewaterDee Dee Bridgewater is an American Jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award - winning stage actress and host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater...
and Balanescu String Quartet in Sarajevo Suite (L’empreinte digitale),1994 - ¡Vivan las utopias! in Buenaventura Durruti (nato, France), 1996
- L'instable and So Deep in L'étrange (CMG, France), 1998
- Machiavel (GRRR), with Benoît DelbecqBenoit DelbecqBenoît Delbecq is a French pianist and composer.Born 6 June 1966 in St Germain en Laye, and raised in a musical environment, Benoît Delbecq started studying the piano in Bougival at the age of seven with Nicolle Mollard, a former student of Alfred Cortot...
, Steve ArgüellesSteve ArgüellesSteve Argüelles is an English jazz drummer, producer and is the boss of the record label . He has also worked in film and theatre. He is the elder brother of saxophonist Julian Argüelles...
, DJ Nem, Philippe Deschepper..., 1998 - Wit in Enhanced Gravity (Yucca Tree, Germany), 1999
- Ça ira in Les Actualités, with singer Baco (Les Allumés du Jazz, France), 2006
- C'est le bouquet (unissued CD to be downloaded with Sextant magazine, GRRR), 2007
- 84 hours of unissued, freely downlable, music (450 pieces) on drame.org, 2010
Concerts
- Long series of Poisons, 1976-79
- 24 silent movies with live orchestra, 1977-99 : À propos de NiceÀ propos de NiceÀ propos de Nice is a 1930 silent short documentary film directed by Jean Vigo and photographed by Boris Kaufman. The film depicts life in Nice, France by documenting the people in the city, their daily routines, a carnival and social inequalities...
(Jean VigoJean VigoJean Vigo was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:...
), The Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...
& StrikeStrike (film)Strike is a 1925 silent film made in the Soviet Union by Sergei Eisenstein. It was Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, and he would go on to make The Battleship Potemkin later that year. It was acted by the Proletcult Theatre, and composed of six parts...
(Sergei EisensteinSergei EisensteinSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
), La glace à trois faces & La chute de la Maison Usher (Jean EpsteinJean EpsteinJean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Epstein directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the...
), CaligariThe Cabinet of Dr. CaligariThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. It is one of the most influential of German Expressionist films and is often considered one of the greatest horror movies of the silent era. This movie is cited as...
(Robert WieneRobert WieneRobert Wiene was an important film director of the German silent cinema.Robert Wiene was born in Breslau, as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Carl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor, but Robert Wiene at first studied law at the University of Berlin. In 1908 he also...
), Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau), WaxworksWaxworks (film)Waxworks is a 1924 fantasy/horror silent film directed by Paul Leni. The film is about a writer who accepts a job from a waxworks proprietor to write a series of stories about the exhibits of Caliph of Baghdad , Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper in order to boost business.Although...
(Paul LeniPaul LeniPaul Leni born Paul Josef Levi was a German filmmaker and a key figure in German Expressionist filmmaking, making Backstairs and Waxworks in Germany, and The Cat and the Canary , The Chinese Parrot , The Man Who Laughs , and The Last Warning in...
), Man with a Movie CameraMan with a Movie CameraMan with a Movie Camera , sometimes called The Man with the Movie Camera, The Man with a Camera, The Man With the Kinocamera, or Living Russia is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film, with no story and no actors, by Russian director Dziga Vertov, edited by his wife Elizaveta...
(Dziga VertovDziga VertovDavid Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
), The Passion of Joan of ArcThe Passion of Joan of ArcThe Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent film produced in France in 1928. It is based on the record of the trial of Joan of Arc. The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti...
(Carl Dreyer), Enfants à Paris (coll. Albert Kahn), FantômasFantômasFantômas is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre .One of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction, Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of 32 volumes written by the two collaborators, then a subsequent 11...
(5 episodes by Louis FeuilladeLouis FeuilladeLouis Feuillade was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films...
) and Vampires, La vie de notre Seigneur Jésus Christ (C. Pathé), Mysterious X & HäxanHäxanHäxan is a 1922 Swedish/Danish silent horror film written and directed by Benjamin Christensen...
(Benjamin ChristensenBenjamin ChristensenBenjamin Christensen was a Danish film director, screenwriter and an actor both in film and on the stage. As a director he is most well known for the 1922 film Häxan and as an actor, he is best known for his performance in the film Michael , in which he plays Claude Zoret, the jilted lover of the...
), L'ArgentL'Argent (1928 film)L'Argent is a French silent film directed in 1928 by Marcel L'Herbier. The film was adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, and it portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.-Background:...
(Marcel L'HerbierMarcel L'HerbierMarcel L'Herbier, Légion d'honneur, was a French film-maker, who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total...
)... - La rue, la musique et nous. Arcueil, 1979
- Rideau!, 1980
- Sound-art in Parc della Rimembranza. Napoli (Italy), 1981
- Pieces for orchestra, 1981-86
- Le trou, from Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, 1982 - Music for fire oragn and orchestra, 1983
- Los Angeles Olympic Games (live with satellite projection, Festival d'AvignonFestival d'AvignonThe Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
), 1984 - La Bourse et la vie (Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, dir.Yves Prin), 1984
- 45 secondes départ arrêté & Féeries Jacobines (fireworks), 1984-85
- Ballet music for Jean Gaudin (Ecarlate), Karine SaportaKarine SaportaKarine Saporta is a French choreographer, dancer, photographer, and short film director. She is one of the most prominent figures in French dance....
(Manèges at Opéra de Paris, Le Coeur Métamorphosé at Théâtre de la VilleThéâtre de la VilleThe Théâtre de la Ville is one of the two theatres built in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann at Place du Châtelet, Paris; the other being the Théâtre du Châtelet...
), Lulla Card... 1985-1989 - Jeune fille qui tombe... tombe by Dino BuzzatiDino BuzzatiDino Buzzati-Traverso was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.-Life:Buzzati was born at San Pellegrino,...
(oratorio, Michael Lonsdale / Daniel Laloux), 1985-90 - Le K by Dino Buzzati (oratorio, Michael LonsdaleMichael LonsdaleMichael Lonsdale , sometimes billed as Michel Lonsdale, is a French actor who has appeared in over 180 films and television shows....
/ Richard BohringerRichard BohringerRichard Bohringer is a French actor.-Personal life:Bohringer was born in Moulins, Allier. He is the father of actress Romane Bohringer, and has two other children, Richard and Lou.-Career:...
- Daniel Laloux, scenary R.Sarti), 1985-92 - La Fosse (opera-bouffe, Martine Viard, Louis Hagen-William, l'Itinéraire), 1987
- Le Chateau des Carpathes by Jules VerneJules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
(burning cantata, Frank Royon Le Mée), 1987 - 20 000 lieues sous mers (magical show and imaginary museum on 2 boats, La Péniche Opéra), 1988
- Zappeurs-Pompiers 1 & 2 (live zapping on giant screen, Lulla Card, Éric Houzelot / Guy Pannequin), 1987-89
- J'accuse by Emile ZolaÉmile ZolaÉmile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
(R.Bohringer, D.Fonfrède, Ahmed Madani, 70 musicians, dir.Jean-Luc FillonJean-Luc FillonJean-Luc Fillon is a French oboist, English Horn player, double bass player, electric bass player, orchestra conductor and composer. He began in 1987 as oboe soloist in the European Symphonic Orchestra, and since 2001, Fillon has made numerous musical compositions that use the oboe and English Horn...
, scenary Raymond Sarti), 1989 - Contrefaçons (orchestra, dir.J-L.Fillon), 1989
- Kind Lieder, 1991
- Let my children hear music by Charlie Mingus, 1992
- Crasse-Tignasse, show for children, 1993-94
- Machiavel (improvised techno with interactive images), 1999-2000
Radio
- U.S.A. le complot & La peur du vide, France MusiqueFrance MusiqueFrance Musique is a French public radio station devoted to music, including classical music and jazz. France Musique was created in 1954 as Chaîne Haute-Fidélité then renamed 1958 as France IV Haute Fidélité, then RTF Haute Fidélité in 1963, and finally France Musique in same year...
, 1983 - Écarlate, France CultureFrance CultureFrance Culture is a French public radio channel and part of Radio France. Its programming encompasses a wide variety of features on historical, philosophical, sociopolitical, and scientific themes , as well as literary readings, radio plays, and experimental productions...
, 1989
Video
- Antène 1, real. Emmanuelle K, 1983
- Auhourd'hui en France, real. Didier Ranz, 1987
- Le K, real. Ch. Gomila, 1989