home > browse > cd-feature > view article

Orchestre National de Jazz: Shut Up and Dance

  Tobias Fischer

From the title you might deduce either A) weirdo indie techno, or B) epic hipness fail by old dudes. Actually it’s neither, this large-scale prog-jazz project;

It could be more rightly assumed that the word ”dance” really means “play” in this context, as the scope of these ten mini-concertos allows for some cutting loose by this jazz orchestra, a project backed by France’s Ministry of Culture (do we even have something like that in the US?). Noises are allowed, so there are circuit-bendings and organic glitches, such as a ping pong ball dropped into piano wires.

Overall the feel is proggy, a la John McLaughlin, Weather Report, etc., although percussion plays a major role (“Racing Heart, Heart Racing” is a bizarre sort of careering zydeco) and the curve balls tend to get a lot of English on them (the coda of “Flying Dream” finds the full-blown horn section cooking up something out of a 60s action TV drama).

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: Orchestre National de Jazz
Homepage: Bee Jazz Records