I've been playing the double bass for 30 years on various jazz scenes and with 8 albums recorded along the way, I reckon now is the time for a new album I called "So in love".

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Why an album of standards ?

I discovered the jazz standards when I was 23, while studying at the renowned Berklee College of Music of Boston. Thanks to my musical background (folk guitar as a teenager, then classical double bass at the music conservatory), I developed a love for simple, nostalgic melodies, such as those written by Puccini.

Among the jazz standards, there are some very melodic compositions by Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Antonio Carlos Jobim, to name but a few.

So I have been working on the idea of associating two composers I particularly appreciate and whom, I find, have a lot in common : Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim. You only have to listen to the beginning of « So in love » and « Falando de amor ». Jobim even arranged some of Porter's compositions, « I concentrate on you », for example.

But first, let's take a step back...

As soon as I arrived in Berklee in 1983, I was often asked to play in jam sessions as there weren't many double bass players around ! This was really good for me as, although I had good technique on the instrument, I had no experience.

Very quickly, these jam sessions became more important than classes – sometimes I was jamming up to 6 hours a day ! We played pieces from the Real book, the famous collection of standards containing some of the most beautiful melodies written by American composers at the beginning of the 20th century (« All the things you are », « Stella by starlight », etc.). That's when I discovered the link between this world of jazz and that of the Romantic composers such as Chopin.

Meet the band !

I chose three musicians for this recording : Jérôme Barde, Marcello Pellitteri and Nelson Veras. Even although they are not the only ones with whom I share deep affinities, they represent everything I like about jazz. I wouldn't have chosen anyone else for all the money in the world !

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At Berklee, as I was spending most of my time jamming, very soon I was playing gigs in the bars and clubs of Boston with the other students. That's how I met two of my favorite musicians who also became friends, the guitarist Jérôme Barde and the drummer Marcello Pellitori. I played constantly with them in all kinds of projects.

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I came home to France 11 years later and settled in Paris, where I met the guitarist Nelson Veras. Despite his young age, he already possessed an astonishing mastery of musical language and his instrument. We spent whole afternoons playing this same repertoire of standards just with our two instruments.

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Jérôme and Nelson are unique guitarists, but they both possess the two qualities essential to this kind of music : a strong sense of melody and very pronounced rhythm and phrasing.

As for Marcello, he is the musician with whom I played the most, along with my brother Jean-Baptiste, from restaurants where he would play brushes with only a snare drum and cymbal to open-air stages with an audience of 10 000 people with the Gipsy Kings. Apart from his musical qualities, he also adds a playful note that is sometimes missing in music.

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The album

1. Chega de saudade (T. Jobim)

2. Love for sale (C. Porter)

 3. Falando de amor (T. Jobim)

4. So in love (C. Porter)

5. I concentrate on you (C. Porter, Arr. T. Jobim)

6. Just one of those things (C. Porter)

7. I love Paris (C. Porter)

8. Night and day (C. Porter)

9. How insensitive (T. Jobim)

10. Bonita (T. Jobim)

11. What is this thing called love? (C. Porter)

Bonus :

- Favella (T. Jobim)

- From this moment (C. Porter)

- Everytime we say goodbye (C. Porter)

My stage project can play out in several combos, from duo to quartet, which opens up many possibilities and allows even more freedom. Playing in a duo has the unique feature of allowing a strong complicity where all the nuances are perceptible by the listener (and the musicians themselves).

In a trio and a quartet, the drums add an amplitude of dynamics and unequaled frequencies. This allows the bass to be less predictable and more nuanced.

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What the critics have said

"One of the most accurate, in-tune double bass players on the French jazz scene" TELERAMA, Michel Contat

"Gildas Boclé, particularly with his bowing, is developing truly personal paths that he builds in harmony with others or else shakes up the atmosphere with his vigorous strokes of the bow." JAZZMAN

"Gildas Boclé is a real jazz artist .... precise, always clear, inventive, offering many creative suggestions ... I was really happy to discover him, calm, creative, efficient, available and always concerned with being most rigorously at the service of the artistic process. " TSF JAZZ, Sébastien Vidal

"The French bassist Gildas Boclé is a sensitively melodic soloist." NEW YORK TIMES, John S. Wilson

« Superb bow solos on the double bass, full of surprises and captivating melodies » GARY BURTON - American vibraphonist « I was so happy to finally have the opportunity of recording with Gildas. His music was everything I expected... and better still : serene, modest and full of swing ! » WALT WEISKOPF - American saxophonist

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So in love !

Recording such a project is a first in my musical career, something I have had in mind for a long time. But I wanted to do it with a sense of perspective, in parallel with the composition of original music that I have always done. This project represents for me the love that I have for these two kinds of music, standards and compositions, hence the title "So in love".

You have doubtless heard many versions of these jazz standards by the greatest musicians and you must be asking yourself what on earth I can bring to the mix... You can find out by contributing to the creation of my album !

Gildas Boclé Nouvel album