Abdoulaye Nderguet & the BEX’Tet

“Blues is American, but its soul is in Africa”
Only astonishment counts. Music without borders.

Playing together is first and foremost being free

A cross-cultural encounter between contemporary music from the old continent and world music from Central Africa, an explosive, true and comforting show. The demonstration that music, when it is alive, is universal. Bringing in the
band is also an opportunity to invite other artists to take part in the party and create new surprises. But the encounter is also with the public.

Abdoulaye Nderguet embraces all the diversity of Chad, a country at the crossroads between the desert and the equatorial forest, between Islam and Christianity. This ability to reconcile what often seems to be opposed has made this singer the designated interlocutor to give substance to a dialogue between jazz and its culture firmly rooted in Africa

« I offer you Chadian songs. For the music, let’s do what we want or what we can. » It is in this good-natured state of mind that Abdoulaye Nderguet met Emmanuel Bex and the musicians of Bex’tet, invited to the French Institute of N’Djamena in October 2019. When he flew to Chad to perform as a trio with his two Bex’tet acolytes, he probably didn’t imagine that he was unconsciously expected by a singer who had never heard of him.

On the one hand, there is the singer Abdoulaye Nderguet, 50 years old, a voice that has earned him the nickname of the « nightingale of Chad » as he is able to modulate it, at ease in the low and high notes – which contrasts with his (former) basketball player physique! Throughout his artistic life, he has acquired different traditional singing techniques that have shaped his vocal personality. There are elements « typical of the Sahel » that are very similar to the blues, he assures, but also others that rub shoulders with rock or are close to a genre similar to that of the griots of West Africa. A whole panel that he secretly hoped to have the opportunity to highlight one day, giving a new impetus to his career. When he became known to his compatriots at the end of the 90s, it was with Tibesti, a pioneer group of modern Chadian music for which this son of a soldier had abandoned his biology studies. He then went on as a solo artist with productions that conformed to local standards and were intended for the domestic market.

On the other hand, there is the 63-year-old French organist and pianist Emmanuel Bex, a figure on the jazz scene, who has won multiple awards (Django Reinhardt Prize, Victoire du jazz, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, etc.). Heir to Eddy Louiss with this same sense of groove, he has put his Hammond in many projects. Man breaks down barriers. When he flew to Chad to perform as a trio with his two Bex’tet acolytes, he probably didn’t imagine that he was unconsciously expected by a singer who had never heard of him.

In this language of notes and chords that they practice and know how to make heard, they instantly found each other. Over the days and the reunion in France in 2020, a repertoire was born, « in the feeling of music » more than in improvisation, with this spontaneity of jazz that seems so familiar to Abdoulaye, judging by his pleasure in such an exercise.

During the recording in Paris, and because music is a dish to be shared, a handful of guests slipped in alongside them to add a few more nuances: the Reunionese harmonica player Olivier Ker Ourio, the Brazilian singer Mônica Passos, the French-Syrian flutist Naïssam Jalal. In the studio as well as on stage, they take roads that make fun of chapels and offer new directions. They expand the world.

Encounter around the extraordinary voice of the Chadian singer Abdoulaye Nderguet and the animal Blues of the Bex’Text led by the great Emmanuel Bex who takes us with power and beauty to new territories. This « voice of sand », which transpires richness of Sahel’s cultures, bursts into a contemporary blues without limits. Only astonishment counts. Music without frontiers.

L’Âme du Blues is the 1st album by Abdoulaye Nderguet & le Bex’Tet. It was recorded at the Triton and is distributed by L’Autre Distribution. The release took place on April 6, 2022 at the Studio de l’Ermitage with guests Naïssam Jalal and Olivier Ker Ourio.

This 14-track album is the result of meetings with the Bex’Tet but also with Olivier Ker Ourio, Naïssam Jalal, Monica Passos and AfrotroniX.
The album is part of the @RfiTalent editions.

Amdagor

Sung in Chadian Arabic, the language of Chad’s current leaders, this song has a kinship with English rock. He has all the energy on stage, while the studio version makes you feel a leaden screed, an electric climate before a storm. Through metaphor, the political dimension of the text can be guessed:
      Only lions compete against lions
      If the horse wins the race
      The owner receives the laurels
      Such is the law of power
      Power has its share of privileges
      Whoever is at the top doesn’t have the right to sleep

Farewell

When the mourning songs of southern Chad meet the classical culture of the old continent, without one taking precedence over the other, the result is Farewell sung in Sarha. This track illustrates the rich creative process that prevailed during the different phases of the album’s conception. Here, it all started a cappella. Then the beginning of a melody on the acoustic guitar in a spirit reminiscent of a Bachian suite. Finally, the flute and the voice of Naïssam Jalal challenged by Abdoulaye’s singing, which she comes to support.

Look at the sky

The earth shakes when singer and musicians play this song, which expresses both Abdoulaye’s love for the French language (five lyrics in French on the album) and his confidence in the future with hard work and patience, everything happens. Climb aboard the musical vehicle piloted by Emmanuel Bex and contemplate the landscapes that pass by throughout this road movie with a strong suggestive power.

Bardjal

Coming from the same region, they had never lost sight of each other since the HSAO adventure in 2020 that brought Caleb Rimtobaye to Canada. Caleb, crowned as AfrotroniX as the best African DJ of the year 2018, and Abdoulaye met in N’Djamena in July 2021 to record this ethnic techno track sung in Chadian Arabic. An almost guaranteed awakening of the dance gods with this typically African beat.

Abdoulaye Nderguet grew up in Sarh, a mythical city in Chad whose inhabitants are the children of Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun. He still sings the traditions of Chad: Arabic songs of Chari-Baguirmi, rhythms and dances of Boulala, lullabies and funeral songs Sara…

Abdoulaye joined the Tibesti group at the age of 22. In 1996, he sang at Fest’Africa with Papa Wemba. In 1997, he was a finalist in the RFI Découverte competition, one of his songs was selected^2nd behind Rokia Traoré who won the competition. In 2000, came the Ngombi festival and then a Tour of the Fest’Africa in France with the group H’Sao. He created the group Shila-Shila. In 2012, he became the ambassador for the fight against malaria in New York, he went on to join the MASA in Abidjan in 2014, etc.

Abdoulaye has four albums to his credit: ESPRIT with Tibesti (1997), BALSA with HSAO (2000), VOIX DE SABLE (2009) and MONDE IMMORAL (2013) as a solo artist. He is now in tour with an authentic program at the confluence of Jazz and traditional Chadian music: soul of Blues.

Emmanuel Bex, French pianist and organist, is 1st prize in piano, bassoon, chamber music, specialized music theory, harmony, musical analysis…

The discovery of Miles Davis was a real revelation, the culmination of his career as a jazzman. Concerts, recordings and international tours follow one another with Turk Mauro, Barney Wilen, Gérard Marais, Aldo Romano, Babik Reinhardt, Christian Escoudé, Gordon Beck, Claude Barthélemy, Marcel Azzola, Bireli Lagrene, André Ceccarelli, Sylvain Beuf, Michel Graillier, Simon Goubert, Glenn Ferris…

His creations have received numerous awards: the Sacem Composition Prize in ’85, the Jazzman Shock of the Year in ’91, and the Django Reinhardt Prize in ’95,… Django d’or at the Jazz Victoires 2002, 2003… Emmanuel is the poet of the present moment….

Antonin Fresson started playing guitar at the age of 6. He obtained DEMs in classical guitar, jazz and improvised music as well as a degree in musicology at the Centre des Musiques Didier Lockwood. He played with Paul Breslin, Roland Romanelli, Simon Goubert, Mathias Levy, Paco Séry, JP Viret, Lukmil Perez and with Emmanuel Bex with whom he forged a close musical relationship…

In 2017, he created Freezone power trio. Antonin is a guitarist in the operetta « Azor » by E. Bex, the quintet Daïda by Vincent Tortiller, the quintet Theoreme of joy by Thomas Julienne, the hiphop-jazz group BassandBeat by C. Cliquet and E. Camy, « Emcee Agora & the Monf’s connection » with A. Monfort, S. F’hima, T. Peyron and the triphop group Pléthore which will shine at the Bataclan…

Antonin is a member of Emmanuel Bex’s trio « Bex’tet » and accompanies the singer SeBa internationally. With his group Daïda, Antonin won the National Defence Competition in June 2021.

Tristan Bex studied classical piano and percussion at the CRR Aubervilliers-La Courneuve. Born into a family of musicians, he played drums at the age of 10 and studied with Simon Goubert and André Charlier…

He perfected his skills at the CRR de Versailles (DEM special mention unanimously), International Music Academy, Centre des Musiques Didier Lockwood. He played with the EWA Orchestra (Brazilian), with This Is Chronicles (rock), toured the USA with American singer Frances Priya and the band Celosia. Tristan is a jazz drummer with Olivier Temime, Francesco Bearzatti, JP Viret, Emmanuel Borghi, E. Bex…

In 2019, he toured in France in Stéphane Bruet’s pop-jazz police operetta « Azor », staged « BAKA » in a quintet, joined Emmanuel Bex’s Bex’tet with Antonin Fresson and accompanied the singer SeBa internationally.

Olivier Ker Ourio was born in Paris but spent his childhood on Reunion Island. At the age of 8, his parents gave him his first chromatic harmonica – with a piston that allowed him to reach sharps and flats. From a simple toy, the harmonica becomes a passion.

Hailed by critics as the only true successor to Toots Thielemans, OKO – Olivier Ker Ourio – is a brilliant composer but also an inspired leader. Today, he is considered one of the best chromatic jazz harmonica players on the planet. After a 25-year career in Paris, he retains a deep attachment to Reunion Island and its Creolity. At 50 years old, he still carries within him the sacred fire to, with his friends from the jazz and Creole scene, keep his multicultural traditions alive in jazz music and contemporary music.

In his eleven albums, his compositions reveal a poetic world inhabited by lyrical melodies, harmonies and inventive rhythms. Speaking at the Centre des Musiques Didier Lockwood, OKO is the guest of many projects.

Mônica Passos is a Brazilian singer, actress and songwriter, born in São Paulo in 1956 and living in France since 1980.

While her latest album was recently ranked by Jazzman/Jazz Magazine as one of the 100 most important singers and 80 most important Brazilian music records of all time, the magazine recognized Monica Passos as « simply one of the most beautiful voices of today. »

This Fellini-esque diva, who was initially only destined for comedy, gradually moved towards a song mixing bossa nova and Brazilian popular traditions. She also composes some of her songs in French.

In 2005, she was awarded the Django d’Or in the « Traditional Music of the World » category

Naïssam Jalal was born in Paris, to Syrian parents, the musician has built herself, from the age of 6, on an artistic level in the multitude of human and artistic encounters… At the age of 19, Naïssam left to continue her training at the Grand Institute of Arab Music in Damascus where she studied nay and then enriched her playing with the greatest masters of classical Arabic music.

From rap to contemporary jazz, from tango to afrobeat, Naïssam Jalal now plays with everyone and plays with all musical categories.

Naïssam received the Charles Cros Academy Prize in 2017 with her quintet Rhythms of Resistance. Their exploration of instrumental hip hop with Palestinian rapper Osloob in the band Al Akhareen was crowned with the Prix des Musiques d’ICI 2020. The spiritual quest turned towards trance and silence of his trio Quest of the Invisible will give birth to an album of the same name. At the 2019 Victoires du Jazz, it was awarded as « unclassifiable album of the year ».

« L’Âme du Blues, (…) Gateway to distant cultures brought together by the blue note. A little spell with incantatory accents » AMINA

« An improbable and striking dialogue between this voice with its Sahelian colouring and the Hammond organ on the border between jazz and improvised music » RFI Musique

« Nicknamed the NIGHTINGALE OF CHAD, he brings the African roots of the blues to life with the musicians of the BEX’Tet. A powerful, soothing voice. » Africa MAGAZINE

« Chadian Abdoulaye Nderguet & Le Bex’Tet (…) seem to commune [with] and invoke the spirits. Farfinet.com

« Through the brother who is going to play, Abdoulaye Nderguet & le Bex’Tet, you will see that the strength is here, in Africa » Cheick Tidiane Seck, Ouaga Jazz Festival

« Whether it’s high or low, Abdoulaye Nderguet has a vocal ease, a poetry in his voice (…) He’s really a bluesman rocker… I was really shocked  » Sébastien Lagrave, Africolor

« Abdoulaye Nderguet (…) The Chadian nightingale and its golden voice! Deutsche Welle

« When the beauty of Chadian and French song is linked to the current blues of the great organist Emmanuel Bex, the magic happens » Catherine Carette, FIP, RadioFrance

« Encountering the unique voice of the Chadian singer Abdoulaye Nderguet and the borderless blues of the Bex’tet » Le Monde Afrique

« Their collaboration, embodied in the album L’âme du blues, is as natural as it is symbiotic » Bertrand Lavaine, RFI

« Abdoulaye Nderguet, the Chadian nightingale… A Legend » SAO MAGAZINE

« Abdoulaye Nderguet is listed among the musicians who are raising the flags of Africa higher through music » Accra Jazz Festival 2022

« Between eruptive jazz and musette swing, rock and ballad, they put a rififi into the traditions of the Sahel. » TELERAMA

« Emmanuel Bex is a great organist, today without competition… » JAZZ MAGAZINE

« Emmanuel Bex is one of the most impressive figures in European jazz. Armand Meignan, EUROPE JAZZ FESTIVAL

« Combined with a charm that, from the outset, resembles a spell, there is a depth of expression that seduced me greatly: the power to say, the poetry of speech… » FRANCE MUSIQUE

« We forget it, but the organ shares with love and delight the privilege of changing genres in the plural. In the hands of Bex, it does even better. It changes its nature to become a real happiness machine. JAZZMAN

« This man is not just an organist, and not just a jazzman: he is a maker of worlds. A dreamer who fabricates hard mirages. A skipper of chimeras, leaving behind a trail of treasure islands. SLIDE

« Olivier Ker Ourio It’s easy to understand why so many musicians have wanted to play with him: he has the breath of the soul » Michel Contat, Télérama

« This lyrical supplement is called charm. Lester Young, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Stan Getz and a few others have been able to tame this gift that allows us to transform the breath into that « something blue that seemed like a wing » (Victor Hugo). Olivier Ker Ourio undoubtedly belongs to this tribe of the chosen ones » MAGIC TREE, Plus Loin Music

« We’ve said it a thousand times, Olivier Ker Ourio is the worthy successor of Toots Thielemans to whom his playing can make us think but this record, by the ingenious combination of sounds, the expressive modernity of the rhythms and the originality of the melodies, is his alone. Undeniably! P. Dulieu, Dragon Jazz Magazine

« Sublime diva, woman of heart and struggle, poet by day and comic by night, improviser before the Eternal and before her Neighbor, Mônica Passos is « quite simply one of the most beautiful voices of today » Jazz Magazine

« Mônica Passos: Totally abnormal natural phenomenon » Le Monde

« Vamp or mutinous, insolent or tragic, there is no shortage of qualifiers to describe Mônica Passos, this Brazilian who seems to have come straight out of a Fellini film » Le Figaro

« Mônica Passos: Moving from the serious to the facetious without transition, turning our emotions upside down in dazzling surrealist sequences » Libération

« Naïssam Jalal: His music is a claim devoid of self-pity. It just carries within it the rage that animates our human condition with, as its aspiration, freedom. »

« Naïssam Jalal, angry, bruised, stunned, horrified or focused on the memory of a culture that is now devastated, her music appears as a direct projection of her soul, a raw painting of the feelings that animate her »

« The flute of Naïssam Jalal is frank, we recognize his sincerity whatever the intensity of the playing involved » Citizen Jazz

« Naïssam Jalal: Rebellious to virtuoso assaults including her transverse flute and her nay flute, this groover, prefers rhythm breaks, touched themes and the suspense of improvisation » Télérama

Pascal TREHET
Tel. : +33 662 700 709
Mail : pascal.trehet@gomusick.com