JEAN-LOUIS MÉCHALI "CINE CLUB" (QUOI DE NEUF DOCTEUR, 1993)

Here's Méchali's second release - my appreciation goes to mew23 who gave his permission to re-post it here at IS.


Jean-Marc Larché - tenor sax
Jef Sicard - tenor sax, baritone sax, bass clarinet
Philippe Sellam - alto sax
Elton Dean - alto sax (Disc 2)
Jacques Di Donato - clarinet
Jean-François Canape - trumpet, flugelhorn
Michel Godard - tuba
Jean-François Ott - cello (Disc 1)
Denis Tuvéri - accordion, bandoneon (Disc 1)
Malo Vallois - guitar
Jacques Labarrière - piano, keyboards
Sophia Domancich - piano (Disc 2)
Jean-Jacques Avenel - bass
Paul Rogers - bass
Jean-Louis Méchali - drums, percussion



Disc 1 - Le film

01. Le billard de Milos et les quatre saisons [11:53]
02. Amnios [03:48]
03. Caribbean Lullaby [02:47]
04. Takawira [04:23]
05. Le coq et l'âne [01:12]
06. Le tango du gardien de phare [07:20]
07. Le marché aux épices [04:33]
08. Zapping [05:40]
09. Morceau choisi [04:55]
10. Foggy Night à la Transat [02:28]
11. La démarche du canard [01:42]
12. Le chasseur de lunes [03:44]
13. Le départ de Gulliver [04:02]
total time [58:27]

Disc 2 - Le débat

01. La main chaude [01:47]
02. Okavongo [06:45]
03. Elzévira [03:15]
04. El suspiro del moro [02:41]
05. Allégorie always Albert [05:03]
06. La baleine mimétique [05:13]
07. Le bar de l'entracte [05:57]
08. Mezzanine pour un suspense [06:57]
09. White Spirit [08:39]
10. Gena et John [04:54]
11. "L'Emile" [03:39]
12. Berceuse pour deux jumelles [06:11]
13. Clepsydre [03:26]
14. Wim [06:31]
15. Happy End [03:59]
total time [74:57]

Compositions by Jean-Louis Méchali
Disc 1 recorded at Studio Paraphernalia, Paris, 1993. Disc 2 recorded at Studio Aladin, 1993
Quoi de Neuf Docteur DOC 028 (France) double CD
http://www.discogs.com/Jean-Louis-Méchali-Ciné-Club/release/4677463 (with scans)

Ripped not from the original CDs but from CD-R copies. My scans were made from b&w photocopies of the booklet.

From the (translated) liner notes by Jean-Louis Méchali
"Music and rhythm of images: images and colours are music: Cinéma and music become interwoven in my mind's eye. I have imagined a film in which images are sounds and music.
I first, with digital magic, delineate background, extras and secondary roles.
Then I invite fourteen friends - musicians - to play as principals in a dreamscape.
They arrive separately, one by one, to play, each on a different day.
Queries: Where are they? Their likes and loves? A birth? A traffic jam? They react suddenly to what flashes over the headphones. One take only. Others watch, attendant upon the master performance.

Their scattered spontaneity is finally integrated into the soundscape through mixing and montage.
INTERMISSION ... ICE-CREAM/POP-CORN ... PROJECTION

We listened to the "film", we felt the urgent need to share impressions, to single out details, to re-scan, to switch roles, to laugh, to say something new ...
Fragments and whole chunks of the "film" triggered a musical colloquium in the studio.
I realised I had in hand the two halves of the double CD "Ciné-Club"."

Surprisingly litte information on JL Méchali can be found online.
Clifford Allen mentions in passing " the brotherly pairing of drummer Jean-Louis and bassist François Méchali, who were on call for a number of excellent French avant-garde recordings and concerts in the ‘70s and early ‘80s." The Méchalis played "small-combo post-psychedelic jazz" with the Cohelmec Ensemble that released three LPs in the early 70s. One of them was shared at Mutant Sounds long ago. Three pieces from that LP can still be downloaded from WFMU.
It seems that JL Méchali released only two recordings as a leader, "Tie-Break" (1987) and "Ciné-Club" (1993) which bear the label of MFA, the official agency promoting French musicians and their work, but strangely none is listed in the MFA disc directory.
Since 2000 he has concentrated on his work at "Lutherie Urbaine", an organisation that "creates music drawing from all genres, from contemporary urban music and jazz to world music and sound art. The project brings together composers, musicians, lute makers and technicians, not to mention actors, authors, dancers, plastic artists and film makers…"