Nguyên Lê

Nguyên Lê ( born January 14, 1959 in Paris ) is a French world music and jazz guitarist and composer of Vietnamese origin, who plays in Europe since 1996 in many important jazz festivals.

Life and work

Lê, son of a professor of Vietnamese literature learned as an autodidact with 15 years of first drums, then guitar and electric bass. He holds a degree in fine arts and philosophy in Paris. As a 18 -year-old he was looking through a prolonged stay in Vietnam to its ethnic and musical roots. Member of the French " Orchestre National de Jazz" 1987 he was, where he played with Randy Brecker and Carla Bley. Three years later he released his first solo CD Miracles. From 1991, he played with the fusion band Ultramarine. A year later, the album was released Zanzibar.

In 1993 he appeared as soloist with the WDR Big Band concert at Jazzpana and to Vince Mendoza's CD Sketches. In the same year he recorded with André Ceccarelli Trio Init. He played in the episode with Andy Emlers Megaoctet, Marc Ducret ( Songs from the Sixties ) and Michel Portal. 1994 he became known throughout Germany by the Berlin Jazz Festival. In 1994 he founded his own Nguyên Lê - trio, a year later, the album was released Million Waves. In June 1995 he presented for the first time before parts of his concept album Tales from Vietnam at the festival " Hall That Jazz " in Paris.

Another band project LES was founded in 1998, Maghreb & Friends, which was oriented primarily to Algeria. The group presented their album in Europe before at concerts and festivals ( Moers, Angouleme, Paris, Montreux, Rome, Cologne and others). The well-established in the late fall of 2004 album, Walking on the Tiger 's Tail is in his titles and themes heavily influenced by the thinking in webs of Daoism. He had previously overcome a serious illness that suggested to him the idea of ​​the tiger 's death and how he could handle it. He has turned his experiences into a delicate, floating soundscape. This music is reminiscent in places of the group's concerts, and Oregon to the Renaud Garcia -Fons. In 2011 he received the Prix Django Reinhardt.

Musical themes and influences

As a young man he experienced the diverse influences of European world music metropolis of Paris, had parents who highly appreciated the European classical chamber music, and sought itself rooted in his ethnic origin in the city on the South China Sea, where his ancestors came from. The traditional music of Vietnam, it made ​​without academic Verschulung independently to its object of study in order to pursue a merger with its other cultural influences.

In a duo with singer Huong Thanh and multi-instrumentalist Hao Nhien or with fellow jazz musicians in Europe he realized an incomparable crossover of ethnic music and jazz. The tradition of jazz tracks him were not enough. He also experimented with the radio trio ELB ( Erskine - Lê - Benita ) and his Hendrix project in rock tones.

His CD Fragile Beauty, which he recorded in duo with Huong Thanh 2007, finished in the spring of 2008, top places in the World Music Charts Europe (april 2nd place May 4th place).

Insightful quotes

• "May all colors, accents and spices come together sincerely, they may be as a middle ground between the flows of cultures: West and East, Central and poles, north and south, bright and attractive. " - Nguyên Lê
• "Just as he, with this high-strung by pauses rock acrimony, the over as from Buddhist rituals waving reputation designs and the remarkable reconciliation grinding, no other man plays guitar ," Ulrich Olshausen wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Nguyên Lê 1993 on the Jazz Festival Berlin.
• " I am a personalized fusion of cultures. " - Nguyên Lê

Current projects formations (as of 2009)

• Lê Trio Nguyên Lê: guitars, arrangements
• Michel Alibo: electric bass
• Karim Ziad: drums, percussion

• Nguyên Lê " Jimi Hendrix Project" Nguyên Lê: guitars, arrangements
• Cathy Renoir: Voice
• Michel Alibo Linley Marthe or: electric bass
• Karim Ziad and Francis Lassus: drums, percussion

• Nguyên Lê "Purple" Nguyên Lê: Guitars

• Huong Thanh and Nguyen Lê - " Dragonfly" Huong Thanh: Voice;
• Nguyên Lê: guitar. arrangement
• Hao Nhien: zither;
• Dan Bau: flutes, percussion
• Dominique Borker or François Verly: percussion, synthesizer
• Michel Etienne Alibo or Mbappé: Bass
• Joël Allouche: drums, percussion

• Nguyên Lê Quartet: Nguyên Lê: Guitars
• Rita Marcotulli: Piano
• Chris Jennings: Bass
• Danny Gottlieb and Roberto Gatto: Drums

• ELB ( Erskine - Lê - Benita ) Peter Erskine: drums
• Nguyên Lê: electric guitars and guitar synthesizer
• Michel Benita: double bass

Discography (selection)

• 2012 Jazz Bigband Graz: Urban Folktales (ACT )
• 2011 CD Songs of Freedom
• 2009 CD Saiyuki with Mieko Miyazaki, Prabhu Edouard and Hariprasad Chaurasia
• 2008 CD Dream Flight ELB ( Erskine - Lê - Benita ) with guest Stéphane Guillaume ( tenor and soprano saxophone)
• 2007 CD Fragile Beauty Huong Thanh and Nguyen Le
• 2006 CD Home Cape duos with Paolo Fresu and Dhafer Youssef
• 2005 CD Walking on the Tiger 's Tail with Paul McCandless, Art Lande, Jamey Haddad
• 2002 CD Purple - Celebrating Jimi Hendrix with Aïda Khann, Corin Curschellas, Bojan ZulfikarpaSiC, Meshell Ndegeocello, Michel Alibo, Terri Lyne Carrington, Karim Ziad
• 2001 CD E_L_B ELB ( Erskine - Lê - Benita )
• 2000 CD Bakida ( with bassist Renaud Garcia- Fons and percussionist Tino di Geraldo and others)
• 1999 CD Moon and wind in a duo with Huong Thanh
• 1998 CD Maghreb and Friends
• 1997 CD 3 Trios
• 1996 CD Tales from Vietnam ( Thanh Huong with, Hao Nhien, Paolo Fresu, Trilok Gurtu, Simon Spang -Hanssen, Michel Benita, etc.)
• 1995 CD Million Waves as Nguyên Lê Trio ( with bassist Dieter Ilg and drummer Danny Gottlieb)
• 1992 CD Zanzibar ( with Paul McCandless, Joël Allouche and others).
• 1992 CD Safy Boutella: Mejnoun
• 1990 first solo CD Miracles ( with Marc Johnson, Peter Erskine )