::: friends ::: erik truffaz

Erik Truffaz and Ilhan and John Farris
by John Farris

Erik Truffaz was born in 1960 in France. Growing up on the border between France and Switzerland, Truffaz learned music from the age of six, concentrating on brass instruments and from the age eight sometimes played with his fatherís dance band with the trumpet eventually becoming his instrument of choice. Truffaz became involved with contemporary pop music from the start of the 70s and in 1975 teamed up with drummer Rene Esteve. The following year he resumed his studies, concentrating now on classical piano. In the late 70s he became a member of the AMR big band in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1980, he formed a pop group, Orange, with drummer Marc Erbetta. A few years later he spent some time with the Brazilian band Cruziero Du Sul. From the early 90s onwards he became associated with the contemporary French jazz movement although he was based chiefly in Switzerland. Playing in a latter-day form of jazz rock fusion, Truffazís work leans noticeably away from the jazz sensibilities of the form. Among musicians with whom he worked in those years are Maurice Magnoni (sazaphone), Marcello Giuliani (bass), Erbetts (drums), and Pierre-Luc Vallet (piano), all members of his first band, and later with Patrick Miller (piano). In the early 90s Truffaz worked with elements including the poetry of Nya, reflecting the poerty and jazz phenomenon of a half-century before.

John Farris: You wer born in the north of France, near Switzerland, in 1960?

Erik Truffaz: Yes.

JF: And your father played music.

ET: Oh yes - he always played music. He played in a marching band and dance music. But it's old music for tradional Europeans.

JF: And you started in his band when you were seven years old?

ET: Yes. I was a kid.

JF: What music had you begun to listen to or did you begin to listen to when you played with your father?

ET: It was French singers on the radio, and I began to listen to jazz because my home was near Montreaux -

JF: Near the jazz festival.

ET: They played the Montreaux Jazz Festival on the radio.

JF: What music did you hear?

ET: At this time? It was Art Blakey, it was also pop music.

JF: What pop music?

ET: Jimi Hendrix and Canned Heat, old rock and stuff.

JF: And what impacted you particularly?

ET: And what means 'impacted'?

JF: Touched you.

ET: I understand. It's a good word.

JF: Actually hit you, crashed into you.

ET: Ah! What music burned me, because it was a new music for me. In Europe in the beginning of the 70s we heard this new music, it was totally revolutionary. It was a really new sound, new instruments, like for me when I heard the first time on the radio the bebop - I was really impressed. It was Dizzy -

JF: Dizzy Gillespie at Montreaux -

ET: Yes was a new sound. Because they don't play this on the French radio, they play French music.

JF: Piaf and stuff like that -

ET: So I was like really wow! It was really fast, it was a new sound.

JF: And what band, and what rock musicians did you hear?

ET: Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. I have a brother, he is ten years older than me, so he played the vinyl, Jimi Hendrix vinyl and I was really impressed - I am always impressed by Hendrix.

JF: So you formed a group, Orange?

ET: Yes. You were on the web site.

JF: Well actually I am a writer in my own right and never thought I would be doing this. But they don't pay poets, so sometimes -

ET: I understand. You know I have a project with a poet, in Europe. We interface electronically, and the poet writes on a computer and what he writes is on a big screen. As he writes, we play -

JF: It is totally improvizational and interactive -

ET: Yes - the words and the music. He is a good poet - Joel Bastard (spells name, to laughter). I love to do this - I love it because the reason of writing is different from the rhythm of playing.

JF: So what brings you to what you are doing now? What would you call the music that you are making?

ET: With Ilhan?

JF: In general.

ET: The music that I try to play and to compose is a mix... it's a kind of mix between drum and bass, and jazz. I keep the rhythm of the drum and bass, dub, and I write some tunes with beat, on this beat like we do in the jazz. So what I am doing is like with jazz music, always they take some tunes from Broadway and after, they mix it for improvization. Itís not very different. The difference in bebop is they bring some tunes from 1930, 1940 - and I take what I hear now.

JF: I wanted to ask you your compositional technique. Composition takes place in programming your computer -

ET: Yes, but not so much. I use a computer like you can use your Walkman. It is easier to record more voice. But I don't use a computer on stage, because I use musicians. But what we did with my band was that the drummer, especially with this music called drum and bass, plays what people did on computer, so it is really fast. So my way is to play acoustically what people do with electronic music. I do the inverse. Some people use a computer, and I bring this idea, but with acoustic instruments.

(Ilhan Ersahin joins us.)

ET: He knew Steve Potts!

JF: Steve Potts was my roommate.

IE: Really.

JF: Yeah - you didn't know that? We lived in 102nd Street and Central Park West.

IE: So we should interview you!

ET: Yeah - I interview him. He a lot of stories - long stories.

JF: So when did you and Erik meet, Ilhan?

IH: We met, gee I don't know, the years pass by so fast, I don't know if it is three or four years now. We met through a friend in Turkey who has a very nice place there and somehow he knew Erik and he knew me and he felt like we should do something together.

ET: Yes a friend of ours in Istanbul was playing his cd, his music, in his venue.

JF: So did you meet at a gig?

IH: No, my friend played my record for him and his record for me.

ET: So when I was in New York I tried to contact him to make a project.

JF: Your heads were in the same direction.

IH: It felt like it was connecting, you know, the whole idea, and we got this opportunity to do a tour in Turkey - that is how it started. So we played a few dates in Istanbul and then we did a tour, thatís how the meeting started.

JF: OK, so Mr. Ilhan Ersahin, the question for you is -

IE: So this is chapter two.

JF: - having personally been involved with some of the press at NUBLU, as you know, I have described your music, in our interviews before, and I let you go on that, you said "well itís just music!" and I said what are you doing and you said ìitís music!î so now we are going to have to be more definitive. The reason I say that is because in your mailer I described what you were doing as a techno-jazz. I was talking about how music is driven by the new technologies, incorporating the new technologies, how there is this fluidity of cultural influences and global influences. So I was saying that the music is informed by funk, by jazz, by lounge, and hip hop and I was cautioned about describing it that way. So how would you describe it?

IE: The music we play has very deep roots in jazz, for sure, in the history of jazz, which is not very long, but itís definately - the players I play with - usually have the knowledge of coming from all the terms that jazz has with it, whether it is big band or bebop or hard bop or -

JF: So we have jazz. I heard there was an objection to funk.

IE: The thing with all those labels is we feel like we are doing ëourí music, all is definately related to different areas... I think what we are doing, talking about myself, is like just living, trying to live in the present and just enjoying the past.

JF: At moments there are influences -

IE: There are always going to be influences, and especially to play instruments like saxophone and trumpet, and this standard jazz, because you have thousands of records that have solos -

JF: I need a reference - have pity on us poor writers.

IE: In Europe they often call it new jazz.

ET: Yes but jazz used to transform the present, so what we hear, everywhere, we take it - we make a mix of all these influences and it comes from electronic music, it comes from rock music, it come from French, hip-hop, and we make a kind of soup.Jazz used to take every element.

JF: So if I call this a new jazz, or I describe it as a new music -

IE: Ours is music. Because if you say itís like a jazz concert and people come and they expect jazz, especially in the states for here jazz is very - youíre playing the standard songs. Itís a difficult name..

ET: You dip in the background of the people -

JF: At the same time, last night I heard you playing with Love Trio and there is dub in there - dub is informed by American popular music, some elements of that in there. And I heard you a couple of nights ago and some of it was pretty funky. I hear you in different contexts.

IE: It's the city - it is also where we live. I live here, and we both live on the road, and thereís the nightlife mixed with studio life, in a way also DJ life got into our compositions because everywhere we play there are always electronics and DJs... Itís the culture now, it is really a part of everything. I am just trying to live in the moment, in what is now.

JF: When did you guys form Our Theory?

IE: We started three years ago, after we did out tour.

ET: I recorded the music in two hours but after Thor (Madsen) worked with a computer and produced the music - changed it a little bit, with electronics.

IE: The record was very interesting - it began with a very simple live recording session and then Erik played over it and so we were like "let's make this!' Then we went from all acoustic to almost all electronic and I listened to it a year later and I said "Thor, this is not good!" and so we went back to the tapes and worked on them again and finally found some middle ground.

JF: Well the one I heard was great.


					Brazilian Girls Butch Norris Chantal Ughi Charles Stella Clark Gayton Dj Hardedge DJ Renochild Eddie Henderson ElodieO Erik Truffaz Jochen Rueckert John Farris Juini Booth Karina Zeviani Kenny Wollesen Malik Burke Marla Turner Martin Ogolter Petar Santiago U-roy	Erik Truffaz and Ilhan and John Farris by John Farris Erik Truffaz was born in 1960 in France. Growing up on the border between France and Switzerland, Truffaz learned music from the age of six, concentrating on brass instruments and from the age eight sometimes played with his fatherís dance band with the trumpet eventually becoming his instrument of choice. Truffaz became involved with contemporary pop music from the start of the 70s and in 1975 teamed up with drummer Rene Esteve. The following year he resumed his studies, concentrating now on classical piano. In the late 70s he became a member of the AMR big band in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1980, he formed a pop group, Orange, with drummer Marc Erbetta. A few years later he spent some time with the Brazilian band Cruziero Du Sul. From the early 90s onwards he became associated with the contemporary French jazz movement although he was based chiefly in Switzerland. Playing in a latter-day form of jazz rock fusion, Truffazís work leans noticeably away from the jazz sensibilities of the form. Among musicians with whom he worked in those years are Maurice Magnoni (sazaphone), Marcello Giuliani (bass), Erbetts (drums), and Pierre-Luc Vallet (piano), all members of his first band, and later with Patrick Miller (piano). In the early 90s Truffaz worked with elements including the poetry of Nya, reflecting the poerty and jazz phenomenon of a half-century before. John Farris: You wer born in the north of France, near Switzerland, in 1960? Erik Truffaz: Yes. JF: And your father played music. ET: Oh yes - he always played music. He played in a marching band and dance music. But it's old music for tradional Europeans. JF: And you started in his band when you were seven years old? ET: Yes. I was a kid. JF: What music had you begun to listen to or did you begin to listen to when you played with your father? ET: It was French singers on the radio, and I began to listen to jazz because my home was near Montreaux - JF: Near the jazz festival. ET: They played the Montreaux Jazz Festival on the radio. JF: What music did you hear? ET: At this time? It was Art Blakey, it was also pop music. JF: What pop music? ET: Jimi Hendrix and Canned Heat, old rock and stuff. JF: And what impacted you particularly? ET: And what means 'impacted'? JF: Touched you. ET: I understand. It's a good word. JF: Actually hit you, crashed into you. ET: Ah! What music burned me, because it was a new music for me. In Europe in the beginning of the 70s we heard this new music, it was totally revolutionary. It was a really new sound, new instruments, like for me when I heard the first time on the radio the bebop - I was really impressed. It was Dizzy - JF: Dizzy Gillespie at Montreaux - ET: Yes was a new sound. Because they don't play this on the French radio, they play French music. JF: Piaf and stuff like that - ET: So I was like really wow! It was really fast, it was a new sound. JF: And what band, and what rock musicians did you hear? ET: Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. I have a brother, he is ten years older than me, so he played the vinyl, Jimi Hendrix vinyl and I was really impressed - I am always impressed by Hendrix. JF: So you formed a group, Orange? ET: Yes. You were on the web site. JF: Well actually I am a writer in my own right and never thought I would be doing this. But they don't pay poets, so sometimes - ET: I understand. You know I have a project with a poet, in Europe. We interface electronically, and the poet writes on a computer and what he writes is on a big screen. As he writes, we play - JF: It is totally improvizational and interactive - ET: Yes - the words and the music. He is a good poet - Joel Bastard (spells name, to laughter). I love to do this - I love it because the reason of writing is different from the rhythm of playing. JF: So what brings you to what you are doing now? What would you call the music that you are making? ET: With Ilhan? JF: In general. ET: The music that I try to play and to compose is a mix... it's a kind of mix between drum and bass, and jazz. I keep the rhythm of the drum and bass, dub, and I write some tunes with beat, on this beat like we do in the jazz. So what I am doing is like with jazz music, always they take some tunes from Broadway and after, they mix it for improvization. Itís not very different. The difference in bebop is they bring some tunes from 1930, 1940 - and I take what I hear now. JF: I wanted to ask you your compositional technique. Composition takes place in programming your computer - ET: Yes, but not so much. I use a computer like you can use your Walkman. It is easier to record more voice. But I don't use a computer on stage, because I use musicians. But what we did with my band was that the drummer, especially with this music called drum and bass, plays what people did on computer, so it is really fast. So my way is to play acoustically what people do with electronic music. I do the inverse. Some people use a computer, and I bring this idea, but with acoustic instruments. (Ilhan Ersahin joins us.) ET: He knew Steve Potts! JF: Steve Potts was my roommate. IE: Really. JF: Yeah - you didn't know that? We lived in 102nd Street and Central Park West. IE: So we should interview you! ET: Yeah - I interview him. He a lot of stories - long stories. JF: So when did you and Erik meet, Ilhan? IH: We met, gee I don't know, the years pass by so fast, I don't know if it is three or four years now. We met through a friend in Turkey who has a very nice place there and somehow he knew Erik and he knew me and he felt like we should do something together. ET: Yes a friend of ours in Istanbul was playing his cd, his music, in his venue. JF: So did you meet at a gig? IH: No, my friend played my record for him and his record for me. ET: So when I was in New York I tried to contact him to make a project. JF: Your heads were in the same direction. IH: It felt like it was connecting, you know, the whole idea, and we got this opportunity to do a tour in Turkey - that is how it started. So we played a few dates in Istanbul and then we did a tour, thatís how the meeting started. JF: OK, so Mr. Ilhan Ersahin, the question for you is - IE: So this is chapter two. JF: - having personally been involved with some of the press at NUBLU, as you know, I have described your music, in our interviews before, and I let you go on that, you said "well itís just music!" and I said what are you doing and you said ìitís music!î so now we are going to have to be more definitive. The reason I say that is because in your mailer I described what you were doing as a techno-jazz. I was talking about how music is driven by the new technologies, incorporating the new technologies, how there is this fluidity of cultural influences and global influences. So I was saying that the music is informed by funk, by jazz, by lounge, and hip hop and I was cautioned about describing it that way. So how would you describe it? IE: The music we play has very deep roots in jazz, for sure, in the history of jazz, which is not very long, but itís definately - the players I play with - usually have the knowledge of coming from all the terms that jazz has with it, whether it is big band or bebop or hard bop or - JF: So we have jazz. I heard there was an objection to funk. IE: The thing with all those labels is we feel like we are doing ëourí music, all is definately related to different areas... I think what we are doing, talking about myself, is like just living, trying to live in the present and just enjoying the past. JF: At moments there are influences - IE: There are always going to be influences, and especially to play instruments like saxophone and trumpet, and this standard jazz, because you have thousands of records that have solos - JF: I need a reference - have pity on us poor writers. IE: In Europe they often call it new jazz. ET: Yes but jazz used to transform the present, so what we hear, everywhere, we take it - we make a mix of all these influences and it comes from electronic music, it comes from rock music, it come from French, hip-hop, and we make a kind of soup.Jazz used to take every element. JF: So if I call this a new jazz, or I describe it as a new music - IE: Ours is music. Because if you say itís like a jazz concert and people come and they expect jazz, especially in the states for here jazz is very - youíre playing the standard songs. Itís a difficult name.. ET: You dip in the background of the people - JF: At the same time, last night I heard you playing with Love Trio and there is dub in there - dub is informed by American popular music, some elements of that in there. And I heard you a couple of nights ago and some of it was pretty funky. I hear you in different contexts. IE: It's the city - it is also where we live. I live here, and we both live on the road, and thereís the nightlife mixed with studio life, in a way also DJ life got into our compositions because everywhere we play there are always electronics and DJs... Itís the culture now, it is really a part of everything. I am just trying to live in the moment, in what is now. JF: When did you guys form Our Theory? IE: We started three years ago, after we did out tour. ET: I recorded the music in two hours but after Thor (Madsen) worked with a computer and produced the music - changed it a little bit, with electronics. IE: The record was very interesting - it began with a very simple live recording session and then Erik played over it and so we were like "let's make this!' Then we went from all acoustic to almost all electronic and I listened to it a year later and I said "Thor, this is not good!" and so we went back to the tapes and worked on them again and finally found some middle ground. JF: Well the one I heard was great.