Airelle Besson & Lionel Suarez: Blossom
I had Ben Rosenblum’s comments about the accordion in mind when I listened to Blossom. In the notes for his The Longest Way Round album (reviewed earlier this year), Ben mentioned the “misunderstood” nature of the accordion. That opened my ears to the different sounds and moods that the accordion can express. In turn, this has made me appreciate the sheer variety of textures to be heard on this album, which combines accordion and trumpet.
Besson and Suarez are both highly regarded musicians. Besson was recognised by the Django Reinhardt Awards Academy as a new talent in 2008 and as Best French Musician in 2015. Suarez is a composer and performer, credited with scores for film and theatre as well as appearing on over 100 albums as a session musician. Both know their instruments intimately and on Blossom perform a range of originals and covers that reveals how rich the combination of trumpet and accordion can be.
There is both delicacy and drama to be heard across the 12 tracks. Suarez brings out the versatility of the accordion as a lead voice and as accompaniment, at times delivering an almost bass-like boom from the keys, and at others a rich, organ-like intensity to the melodies. Besson weaves deft trumpet lines throughout the songs, able to sound bluesy and classical, reflective and scalding as the mood demands. The album begins and ends with a couple of haunting compositions, one from Besson and the other in partnership with Suarez. Both feature simple melodies initiated on the accordion, the use of space, and the delicate introduction of the trumpet as the songs develop.
Nothing flash, nothing over the top, Blossom offers a thoughtful showcase of what can happen when two highly skilled musicians come together and explore new horizons.
Discography
Blossom; Kyoto Dans La Brume; Sans Laisser D’Adresse; Answer Me; La Course; Ida Lupino; Lontano; Le Jour J À L’Heure H; Au Lait; De Passage: Les Tuiles Bleues; Resonances (45.57)
Besson (t); Suarez (acc). Alys Studio, October 2025.
Bretelles Prod BP06190105
Leïla Olivesi: African Rhapsody
Paris-based Leila Olivesi is an award-winning composer and pianist. She has won Best Musician of the Year awards and a Django Reinhardt prize and she won the Ellington Composers prize in 2013. Add to this a PhD in musicology from the Sorbonne and you see her pedigree and talent.
This is Leila’s seventh album and takes the listener on a journey through the various landscapes of Africa and deposits them at the end in New York. On the way, the album explores the influences of the African continent on jazz, weaving in a little Duke Ellington – whom she has studied – along the way. There is a world-music feel to many of her compositions and in the textures explored by the band. The music swings and sways, is built around lovely melodies and harmonies, but it is also exploratory in nature, much as Ellington’s music was in the way it embraced cultures from across the globe. Tucked away amongst Olivesi’s compositions is Ellington’s own Little African Flower, first heard on his 1962 Money Jungle album. It sounds right at home as part of African Rhapsody.
The opening eight tracks form a kind of suite, the pieces all working well together. The concluding three tracks form the Poetic Birds Suite, which has a different quality to it, bringing in a vocal ensemble. These tracks propel us to that final destination of New York. At times, given the suite’s more classical, formal structure, some of the jazz connection with the earlier tracks feels a bit lost. It is still very listenable and very polished, but some of the overall cohesion of the album is diluted in the last 15 minutes.
Discography
African Rhapsody; Corsica; Wayne Left Town; Blue Chinguetti; Little African Flower; Joy; Aurore; Interlude: Afro Queen; Poetic Birds Suite – Les Nuits; Un Jour, Le Silence; New York (30.13)
Olivesi (p, arr, cond); Baptiste Herbin, Olga Amelchenko (as); Jean-Charles Richard (bar, ss); Adrien Sanchez (ts, f); Quentin Ghomari (t, bugle); Manu Codjia (g); Yoni Zelnik (b); Donald Kontomanou (d); Camile Bertault (v). Poetic Birds Ensemble – Yanis Benabdallah, Yete Queiroz, Clemence Olivier, Armelle Humbert, Julia Beaumier, Annouk Jobic, Judith Deroin, Florent Thioux, Giles Safaru, Emmanuel Bouquey, Sorin Adrien, Vlad Crosman (v). Malakoff, France, 4-6 and 20 March 2025.
Attention Fragile AF1012
Chet Baker: Shine
Looks can be deceptive. Just months before his mysterious death in May 1988 and looking battered by all that life had thrown his way, Chet Baker recorded this wonderful set in Italy sounding fresh and confident in a way that would not have seemed possible earlier in the decade. Back in 1983, performing with Stan Getz in Stockholm, Baker had sounded frail, almost bullied off stage by Getz in what turned out to be a very unhappy recording experience. What a difference four years can make.
For this December 1987 concert, Baker was working with musicians he clearly enjoyed being with, striking up a particularly rewarding rapport with Nicola Stilo, who had worked with Baker since 1975. The set list plays to Baker’s strengths of performing intimate, quiet versions of songs, and the lack of drums, which Baker preferred in this final stage of his career, provides the perfect backdrop to both his playing and singing. The voice-guitar duet of Elvis Costello’s Almost Blue is a beautiful, poignant reading of the song, which reveals a quiet strength in Baker’s voice that was so noticeably absent earlier in the 80s on some recordings.
The short essay by Giuseppe Piacentino in the booklet that comes with the two-CD set is excellent, offering both a retrospective on Baker’s troubled life and career, and putting the 1987 concert into context. Baker was looking ahead with optimism. Fashion photographer Bruce Weber was working on a documentary about him which would be released as Let’s Get Lost – a project Baker would not live to see come to fruition. Knowledge of what was to come – Baker’s death in Amsterdam in May 1988 – only adds to the impact of Shine. How joyful the music sounds, almost 40 years after it was played, but how bittersweet.
The live concert is crisply recorded, capturing the ambience of the event and that sense of connection and use of space by the quartet. Baker was surrounded by musicians who knew how to get the best from him, and Shine is a superb example of just how good a musician he was, even towards the end of a troubled life.
Discography
CD1: Night Bird; Conception; Almost Blue; I’m A Fool To Want You; You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To (50.00)
CD2: But Not For Me; In A Sentimental Mood; Just Friends; Margarine; Arborway, Zingaro (60.55)
Baker (t, v); Nicola Stilo (f, g); Michel Graillier (p); Rocky Knauer (b). Ferrara, Italy, 9 December 1987.
Red Records RR 123353-2
