2023-08-31 14:52:30
The ardent musical duo formed by singer Clotilde Rullaud and pianist Alexandre Saada presents its latest album, “Eastern Spring”, Thursday evening as part of the Jazz à la Villette festival. The duo poetically revisits militant pop songs produced in the Eastern world in the 60s and 70s. Clotilde Rullaud, alias Madeleine, tells us about this record.
Seven years ago, they released a bewitching and enchanting debut album, A Woman’s Journey, for which Franceinfo Culture had met them. The duo Madeleine & Salomon, formed by Clotide Rullaud, singer and flautist, and Alexandre Saada, pianist (and backing vocalist), made their big comeback in the fall of 2022 with a second album, Eastern Spring (chez Tzig’Art) as deep and committed as its predecessor. In the meantime, each has carried out their own artistic projects. After celebrating the militant figures of American popular song in 2016, they revisit another repertoire created in a powerful momentum of emancipation and questioning, that of pop songs from the East and the Middle East of the 60s and 70s.
Clotilde Rullaud sings in different languages (mainly in English, a little in French, Arabic and Turkish) to serve songs from Iran (Komakam Koncombined with the poem Howl d’Allen Ginsberg), du Liban (Matar Naem by the group Ferkat Al-Ard on a text by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwich, as well as the magnificent Do You Love Me ? of the Bendaly Family), Morocco (Me Long Megri Brothers), Egypt (In Fatsh Leah of the Al Massrieen group), Tunisia (From the East to Orion of KR Nagati), of Israel (Layla of Shalom Hanoch as well as the moving Ha’Yalda Hachi Yafa Ba’Gan of Yehonatan Geffen and Yoni Rechter), and finally of Türkiye (A Thin Thin Snow Fallssuccess of Selda Bagcan, and the traditional Coming Stream Stream). Some pieces intertwine with each other through inspired, refined arrangements, charged with the emotion of the tandem. Simply splendid.
Before the concert Madeleine & Salomon this Thursday evening in Paris, at the Hermitage Studioas part of the Jazz à la Villette festival, Clotilde Rullaud answers questions from Franceinfo Culture.
Franceinfo Culture: What prompted you to approach this particular repertoire of militant songs from the 60s and 70s in the Eastern and Middle Eastern world?
Clotilde Rullaud: When we released our first album A Woman’s Journeythe song Swallow Song became a bit of our “hit”… When thinking about a new album, we wondered why people liked this title so much. We adapted the song performed by Mimi Fariña, sister of Joan Baez, and her husband Richard. At the time of its release, through reactions on social networks, we realized that it was already an adaptation: that of Ladino music, of Sephardic Jewish origin from Spain , titled The Bibilicals. We found it interesting that this song, which was closest to our Mediterranean origins, was the one that had the most impact on people.
Do you both have ties to the Mediterranean?
Yes. Alexandre is of Algerian and Tunisian origin by his parents. I come from the southwest, and in our origins we have a family in Greece. The Gironde, where I grew up, was marked by mixes, mixtures, influences. And my paternal grandmother always lived in a corner of Charente called La Maurie… Finally, I had the opportunity to spend time in Lebanon during a period of my life. I kept very strong ties there. Faced with this history of roots, we began to dig into this oriental world, this Mediterranean which is close and dear to us. We then came across this absolutely incredible musical period of the 60s and 70s from all around the southern Mediterranean, which goes from Morocco to Greece. I was already fascinated by the Shiraz Arts Festival which took place in Iran. The whole planet went there: American free jazz musicians, Indians, Africans…
“Musical porosity between East and West”
With Alexandre, we realized to what extent, at that time, there was a musical porosity between the West, the Middle East, even the East. It existed this time in the sense of these Mediterranean countries which were looking for Western influences to bring them back into their music. We knew that Western groups like the Beatles were going to draw inspiration from India, for example. But in the other direction, we knew it a little less. Our research has made these pieces much closer to us. They had all their folk character in rhythms, modes, arrangements and poetry. And at the same time, there was the appearance of instruments that clearly came from the West, a crossbreeding with Brazilian influences, bossa nova, jazz, psychedelic, British pop, everything that was in being created in the West.
These two artistic universes influenced each other mutually…
Completely. We found it exciting. This gave not only a gateway linked to our cultural roots, but also to our current musical influences. There was a double door, in an exciting local political context: the desire of young people to create a new world… This is also why these influences are mixed. Some of the youth from these countries left to study in the West and came back with the desire to create something that would perhaps combine the best of both worlds. We were then in a moment of transition between very totalitarian eras. We started working on this project in 2018, then the Covid arrived and delayed everything. And when we finally released it, there was a musical “revival” in the youth of these countries, I am thinking in particular of Anatolian rock, Greek laïkó… I think there is a very strong parallel between our time and the 60s and 70s. In any case, there is something, echoes, which makes us want to reclaim this material and bring it back to life.
There was a “revival”, and at the same time a step back in Afghanistan, a repression in Iran to quell the aspirations of women, what an irony of fate…
Yes, it happened at the time of the launch of the album. It is indeed a sad irony of fate, and at the same time, I feel like saying that we should have known. When something is in the air, I think it’s the artist’s job to listen, to extend their antennae and to pass on this feeling. If we wanted to go there and dig into this material, it’s probably because somewhere, we felt that something was going to echo.
The directory you explored must have been huge. How did you select the songs included in the album?
We started with about 200 titles, which was the result of collecting from many friends, for Alexandre, and very strong ties, for me, to this Mediterranean. I called these people who gave us lots of threads, leads. We ended up with a playlist of 200 songs. As Alex says, “Fortunately there was the Covid!”, that left us time to dissect all that! We kept twenty to thirty pieces. The most difficult thing was then to put our paw there.
How did you appropriate these songs?
First, we worked at Alex’s, with his piano. Then we did three residencies which allowed us to refine the repertoire. We approach each piece by trying to find a doorway that is personal to us. It can be a ritornello, for example. We are looking for the backbone of the piece, which made it affect us. This point is fundamental, it is what we must highlight in our way of interpreting the piece. We start from this little thread, we explore, until a subject emerges that seems coherent and interesting to us.
What is the song that touched you both the most? And then, the adaptation of which you are most proud?
I think Alex really liked the Egyptian song In Fatsh Leah, and maybe the two Israeli songs from a record he had at home. On my side, I loved it Do You Love Me ?, the Lebanese song that we completely blew up… I love what we’ve done with it. I really like the Iranian too Komakan Kon. Iran is not located on the Mediterranean rim but we wanted to associate it with this project. I love Alex’s idea of slipping Allen Ginsberg’s poem into it. The Beat Generation [ndlr : mouvement dont Ginsberg était le cofondateur] is one of my big influences.
Your first album A Woman’s Journey was already a tribute to militant personalities. We find the theme of commitment in Eastern Spring. Is this a raison d’être of your duo?
In fact, we don’t do it on purpose! We left for the Mediterranean basin by the thread of this resonance, of this geographical tie, not through activism. We find ourselves a bit like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme who writes prose without knowing it! [Elle rit] We do it in spite of ourselves, but somewhere, it must be an integral part of us, and we assume it. Does music that tells things related to an era affect us more than other music? Maybe. Militant songs often remain in the collective memory, regardless of the country.
Slow motion hearts
Can we imagine one day a Madeleine & Salomon record with lighter themes?
I don’t know… If it comes naturally, we’ll do it, because we don’t think things through. Very recently, Alex and I discovered something in common: we both have very slow beating hearts. We’re on the verge of bradycardia. We laughed because it came out of a conversation. We’ve known each other for a long time and we’ve never talked about it. We asked ourselves: “Isn’t this the answer to our minimalist and perhaps a little melancholy universe?” We don’t have excited hearts, what! [Elle rit] At the same time, we are both fans of Stevie Wonder, of Brazilian music, so it could give us future directions…
Over the years, how has your duo evolved? Do you still surprise yourself?
Yes, I think we still surprise ourselves. That’s why we chose a duo name: we wanted to keep other projects on the side, completely different. Thus, we keep a freshness because we feed on other things, individually. And when we find ourselves together, everything we have gleaned elsewhere comes to feed our duo. This brings air, surprise and new desires. In this album, for example, we introduced electronics. Afterwards, I have the impression that we are more and more intimate, in the first sense of our friendship, with the passage of time. And that plays even more into our scenic relationship. We already trusted each other a lot before. And today, there is between us something of the order of absolute trust, like brothers, it is beyond the stage of friendship. That’s what I would say about Alex…I hope he would say the same about me!
Madeleine & Salomon in concert in Paris and Nevers this fall
Thursday August 31, 2023 in Paris, Eastern Spring at the Studio de l’Ermitage, 8:30 p.m., as part of the Jazz à la Villette festival
Saturday October 7 in ParisTribute to Serge Gainsbourg at Sunside, 7 p.m., as part of the Jazz sur Seine festival, with journalist Lionel Eskenazi
Wednesday November 15 in Paris, Eastern Spring at the Museum of Jewish Art and History, 8 p.m., as part of the festival Jazz’n’Klezmer
Saturday 18 November in Nevers, Eastern Spring at the Municipal Theater, 12:15 p.m., as part of the festival D’Jazz Nevers
#Eastern #Spring #committed #pop #Orient #revisited #grace #duo #Madeleine #Salomon #concert #Paris #Thursday #evening