Luc Bouquet
Au Bal Clandestin
FRANCE FOU RECORDS FR – CD 57 CD (2024)
Solo percussion album by this French drummer. I was all ready to muse on the surrealist potential of a “Bal Clandestin”, which sounds like a type of masked entertainment which Andre Breton might well have espoused, or the title of a painting by Paul Delvaux. Instead, it’s a real historical thing, part of the Resistance; when Free France was occupied by the German invaders during the second world war, the locals would hold dances and musical soirées in farmhouses and villages. They had to do this in secret, even concealing the instruments in the panniers of their motorbikes; if found out, it might have meant imprisonment, or even a death sentence, so opposed were the Nazis to any forms of art, music, freedom of expression, or even the simple joys of life.
Luc Bouquet’s father Jean Bouquet was a jazz drummer in the 1940s, and he played at many a bal clandestin, along with his partner Séverin who played the accordion. On this record, Luc Bouquet not only honours his father’s art and achievements, but also connects to his own family history and memories, and his intimate knowledge of the countryside and landscape of the Alpilles which he knows so well. Certain place names of this area are embedded in the titles he gives the pieces. What emerges is a respectful and subdued, but very heartfelt and personal, set of musical performances. (30/04/2024)