The music of O.U.R.S. (or ‘ours’, French for bear), a lineup made of excellent protagonists on the French jazz scene, is just like its name: grave, but given to playfulness. Gracefully progressive, and brilliantly classical. The members combine their musical heritage and improvisation with infinite élan. This they do in the spirit of the free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, and here they unite his daring arpeggiations with the stubborn repetitive motifs of American minimalists. This is what the acronym O.U.R.S. alludes to: Ornette Under the Repetitive Skies.

African trance, solos conjuring up a 1970s mood, the spirit of Coltrane and reworked liturgical chants: this is what gives the basis for the compositions of band leader-violinist Clément Janinet, and with his experienced, inventive colleagues he weaves from them lyrically soaring music in the BMC Studios. Hugues Mayot (tenor sax, piano, percussion), Joachim Florent (double bass, percussion), Emmanuel Scarpa (drums, vibraphone, percussion) all took part in shaping the outcome of the compositions. The ‘popular jazz’ thus formed is exciting, conceptual, and open, shot through sometimes with creative chaos, elsewhere with the simple feelings of the purest melodies. Although with his playing he is able to bridge the chasms between oral traditions and composed music, between raw energy and lyrical refinement, between dance and idea, Clément Janinet does not put himself in the solo role, but rather accompanies the saxophone’s litany as he carries the musical ideas forward. This democratic approach winds throughout the music, often binding the multitude of notes into one single homogeneous, expanded, meditative moment in time.

O.U.R.S. quartet was founded in 2017 by the prominent French violinist Clément Janinet, partner musician to Didier Lockwood, Étienne Mbappé, Sylvain Rifflet, and Han Bennink, and an active member of the large lineups Radiation 10, Collective LaVie Brief, and Banquet. As suggested by the band’s complete name, Ornette Under the Repetitive Skies, Janinet’s compositions for the quartet were inspired simultaneously by the lyricism in the free-jazz giants of the 1960s (Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, and others), and by the sound and rhythm textures of the contemporary repetitive music of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. His partners in this project are greats such as the tenor saxophonist Hugues Mayot, who is equally at home in world music, metal, and big band jazz, and who debuted as a composer on BMC Records in 2019 with his album L’arbre Rouge. On the bass is Joachim Florent, a musician of many interests, whose musical declarations are characterized by a kind of vigour, which he honed and perfected in the Jean-Louis Trio and Révolut!on. All this is underpinned by the truly ‘striking’ playing of Emmanuel Scarpa on drums and percussion. His skill is familiar from the lineups Umlaut and Marteau Matraque, and more recently the duo SkullTone.