reference number : J2101
release date : 19/09/2025
release date : 19/09/2025
Photos : Annabelle Tiaffay
about this album
Adventurous, imaginative and navigating the French jazz scene for over a quarter century, Matthieu Donarier has often played with aesthetics and foiled attempts at style classifications. Fan of sophisticated metrical and harmonic forms as well as popular songs, of chiselled compositions as well as free improvisation, here he is presenting for the first time the fruit of a quartet work which at first glance seems very classical: saxophone, piano, double bass, drums. A jazz cliché? Don't be fooled: Matthieu Donarier's homage to one of his masters is a tribute to an entire jazz memory in a limpid and spontaneous opus marked by freedom and mutual listening.
“It was under a first lockdown’s unruffled blue sky that I finished writing the COASTLINE repertoire, conceived as a tribute to Steve Lacy - a major artist whose music and thought have accompanied me since my beginnings.
Rather than a program based on his works, I opted for a suite of personal compositions. It's the very least I can do to salute this great musician with such a singular career path, whose music, freedom of thought and sound have nourished me for many years.
COASTLINE, because this thin, ever-changing line between two elements - one reassuring and familiar, the other foreign and fascinating - is the path I chose to follow in order to write this repertoire as a tribute to Steve Lacy. Writing with him in mind, writing towards him, getting as close to him as possible, while keeping my feet on my own ground. Not mimicking, but staring and contemplating.
COASTLINE, too, because it's a place I know well, a place of resourcing and incompleteness, of healthy daydreams and carefree play. It is where I grew up and it's what I am made of. Whether a coastline is a marvel of nature or overrun for two months a year, a peaceful expanse open to the starry sky or a hostile place of rare violence, battered by wind and salt, it's always, always, a strange place.
And then, COASTLINE, of course, because it's a magnificent composition by Steve Lacy which isn't on this album but which we'll be playing on stage.
Sophia Domancich, Stéphane Kerecki and Simon Goubert form a dream team who instantly took on this repertoire beyond anything I had expected. Each of us in the quartet have a special history with Steve Lacy. Overall is the joy of creating brand new forms together and exploring these compositions like so many treasure maps.”
Matthieu Donarier
“It was under a first lockdown’s unruffled blue sky that I finished writing the COASTLINE repertoire, conceived as a tribute to Steve Lacy - a major artist whose music and thought have accompanied me since my beginnings.
Rather than a program based on his works, I opted for a suite of personal compositions. It's the very least I can do to salute this great musician with such a singular career path, whose music, freedom of thought and sound have nourished me for many years.
COASTLINE, because this thin, ever-changing line between two elements - one reassuring and familiar, the other foreign and fascinating - is the path I chose to follow in order to write this repertoire as a tribute to Steve Lacy. Writing with him in mind, writing towards him, getting as close to him as possible, while keeping my feet on my own ground. Not mimicking, but staring and contemplating.
COASTLINE, too, because it's a place I know well, a place of resourcing and incompleteness, of healthy daydreams and carefree play. It is where I grew up and it's what I am made of. Whether a coastline is a marvel of nature or overrun for two months a year, a peaceful expanse open to the starry sky or a hostile place of rare violence, battered by wind and salt, it's always, always, a strange place.
And then, COASTLINE, of course, because it's a magnificent composition by Steve Lacy which isn't on this album but which we'll be playing on stage.
Sophia Domancich, Stéphane Kerecki and Simon Goubert form a dream team who instantly took on this repertoire beyond anything I had expected. Each of us in the quartet have a special history with Steve Lacy. Overall is the joy of creating brand new forms together and exploring these compositions like so many treasure maps.”
Matthieu Donarier
concerts
It's not an exhaustive list.
november 2025
tracklist
01 — EBB TIDE — 06:06
02 — THE WALK — 06:44
03 — WHIM WHAM — 05:27
04 — PEEBLES — 08:02
05 — THE HIDDEN ONES — 05:50
06 — DOMINO EFFECT — 07:01
07 — IS THAT YOU? — 03:40
This album is dedicated to saxophonist and composer Steve Lacy.
Recorded on October 11 and 12, 2021 and mixed by Maïkol Seminatore.
Mastered by Emil Spányi.
02 — THE WALK — 06:44
03 — WHIM WHAM — 05:27
04 — PEEBLES — 08:02
05 — THE HIDDEN ONES — 05:50
06 — DOMINO EFFECT — 07:01
07 — IS THAT YOU? — 03:40
This album is dedicated to saxophonist and composer Steve Lacy.
Recorded on October 11 and 12, 2021 and mixed by Maïkol Seminatore.
Mastered by Emil Spányi.
Connexions
other works with Matthieu Donarier
Matthieu Donarier trio >> live formsLe Gros Cube >> La martipontine
UNIT >> wavin'
Le Gros Cube >> LE PAX, Le Gros Cube VS Katerine
Le Gros Cube >> Polar mood
Matthieu Donarier trio >> optic topic
Kindergarten >> kindergarten
D. Casimir & Yolk en cuisine >> Phonotaxis ou le génome de la vache
Wood (boisseau-donarier) >> WOOD
Le Gros Cube >> Queen bishop
Orphicube >> perception instantanée
Matthieu Donarier trio >> Papier Jungle
Jean-Christophe Cholet - Alban Darche - Mathias Ruëgg >> Le tombeau de Poulenc
Adieu mes très belles >> Adieu mes très belles
Longboard >> Being wild
Santi Quintans' TIPTRICK >> Kiss the Joy
Le Gros Cube #2 >>
Le Gros Cube #2 >> Histoire sans paroles
other works with Stéphane Kerecki
Jean-Christophe Cholet - Alban Darche - Mathias Ruëgg >> Le tombeau de Poulenc
Photos : Annabelle Tiaffay