DAVID AUBAILE TRIO

David Aubaile Trio is an equilateral triangle whose vertex is interchangeable. David Aubaile is certainly the instigator and composer of this music, but they all play on equal terms. These three friends have a lot of stage experience and spontaneity, and manage to share the musical lead.

Not long ago, David Aubaile set off on his bicycle for a few weeks on the roads of France, dragging behind him a portable upright piano. With his storytelling partner, he gave concerts in the villages of France, offering his music to anyone who wanted to hear it, inviting himself into people’s homes as and when the occasion demanded. This journey says a lot about this extraordinary artist, who sees in music a dimension that goes beyond it, like a possible link between people. A flutist and pianist, Aubaile grew up in a family of music lovers and scientists travellers.

He studied music, law and ancient Japanese… In other words, he is a curious man, a kind of original, a brilliant jack-of-all-trades whose only guides are desire and curiosity… He has worked alongside the likes of Brigitte Fontaine, Oumou Sangare, Ziggy Marley, Blick Bassy, Oxmo Puccino, Salif Keita and Julien Lourau, but over the years he has also produced a number of striking personal creations (« Thinko », « Hima », « Dolce Ostinato »). His musical world knows no boundaries, and he likes to describe himself as a kind of music « trafficker », a « specialist in nothing », who has no fundamental mastery of any tradition or folklore but has had the good fortune to immerse himself in it in situ, during his many travels around the world.

The sap of this music has been passed on to him through encounters, like a precious and natural oral tradition that flows freely from one artist to the next. David Aubaile has turned his musical environment into a kind of personal and imaginary folklore, connecting worlds that we imagined to be distant.

It is in this unknown space that we discover « Trafiquants », a joyful and transgressive album, the manifesto of a generous musical kleptomaniac, and the abundant logbook of an explorer, a buccaneer of sound.

DAVID AUBAILE – piano
Poly-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer, David Aubaile sails outside the borders and draws an open existence where music can only be mixed, intrinsically lively and alive. From flutes to keyboards, his knowledge of the classical and jazz worlds, his taste for traditional music and his desire to keep a wide ear, everything links him with the same enthusiasm to very varied projects. Born of an ethnobotanist mother and an engineer father, both ardent music lovers, David Aubaile grew up in London,then Toledo, before finally choosing Paris as his anchor point. A start in life that predestined him fortravels of all kinds. Studying law and ancient Japanese, it was through music that this eternally curious chose to express his extraordinary imagination through music. His taste for adventure has led him to collaborate with artists from worlds as diverseas Brigitte Fontaine, Oumou Sangare, Ziggy Marley, Hindi Zahra, Blick Bassy, Oxmo Puccino, Julien Lourau… At the same time, he produces and presents on stage his own creations (Thinko, Dolce Ostinato, Hima), and also composes for theatre, dance and image. David Aubaile is an artist without barriers, who has drawn on a wide range of musical cultures in situ, which can be found, like a fascinating Esperanto, in his many collaborations and his own creations.

CHRIS JENNINGS – double bass
Born in Canada and living in Paris since the dawn of the 21st century, Chris Jennings is a citizen of the world whose talent, curiosity and passion have led him to some exceptional collaborations. He has worked alongside oud player and singer Dhafer Youssef (in the company of Tigran Hamasyan and Mark Guiliana), and for many years he has also been the adventurous companion of guitarist Nguyên Lê. His totally original approach to the instrument now places him at the centre of major groups such as pianist Joachim Kühn’s trio and that of Gregory Privat. Also a member of saxophonist Céline Bonacina’s group, Jennings has produced eight albums as a leader, exploring, with Mieko Miyazaki, Patrick Goraguer, Eric Schaefer and Hayden Chisholm, the music of a world that is constantly reinvented.

KARIM ZIAD – drums
An insatiable traveller, Karim Ziad is a drummer, singer, composer, arranger, conductor and artistic director of the Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival. His musical approach, nourished by the traditional music of the Maghreb (he was born in Algiers in 1966), explores the possibilities of encounters between the language of jazz, the freedom of improvisation and popular traditions. Since arriving in Paris in 1989, this fascinating, charismatic, funny and mystical figure has been making music that transcends borders, drawing on a wide range of sources to forge new paths. He has become a key drummer, working with the likes of Safy Boutella, Cheb Mami and Khaled, as well as Joe Zawinul, Bojan Z, Nguyen Lé, Vince Mendoza, the WDR big band and Sixun, to name but a few. Over the course of these collaborations and five remarkable albums as a leader, Karim Ziad has acquired a status all his own: that of a visionary, generous and unifying artist whom we love to follow in his dazzling intuitions.