Jazz Bonus: Benjamin Petit “Dear John”

” John Williams marked me and marked my entire generation. I wanted to be a vector of extension and transmission of his musical genius “Benjamin Small

To say that it is a question of rediscovering the festive and popular roots of jazz, that could sound cliché. But that’s not the case with this new opus by Benjamin Petit, a self-taught saxophonist with a pop background who assumes that he wants to speak to the general public through popular melodies that marked his child’s soul. The saxophonist discovered Branford Marsalis through Sting, he then fell in love with Charlie Parker and Coltrane, before rolling his bump on tours of Michel Jonasz between 2000 and 2002 as a young 22-year-old sideman. His first album released in 2017 (sponsored by André Manoukian’s Maison des Artistes in Chamonix) already borrowed from the jazz-bebop-hard bop trend with a light and lively groove, a style close to his two tutelary figures, markers of the 1990s , Kenny Garrett and Branford Marsalis. From now on, he takes film music as his theme, the ones he loves passionately.

Benjamin Petit evolves in the air when he is not on the stage. Pilot at Air France, he dreamed in front of the X-Wings of Star Wars before dreaming of Coltrane: “J I pilot planes maybe because I was immersed in the cockpits of the saga. Luke Skywalker, Skywalker, I too wanted to walk in the sky ” he confesses. And we understand then that Dear John is also a very personal project: “The idea was to carry out a project that had never been done: to infuse jazz into Williams’ symphony simply because I wanted to listen to it“.

The first title The Throne Room takes up the emblematic theme of the saga Star Wars, arranged with McCoy Tyner and Kenny Garrett sauce. The tone is set, the swing spins, filled with speed and energy. We may be somewhere in a bebop club and we forget about Darth Vader until he subtly returns. Suit The Medallionthe theme ofIndiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark whose soprano saxophone by Benjamin Petit seems to be recontextualized in a Ravelian vein that underlines the classicism of the piano.

Getaways is taken from the movie Catch Me If You Can with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. Played by five this time, with the electric guitar of Jean-François Valade, the piece is dressed in pure jazz thanks to a series of sharp solos by the saxophonist and the young pianist.

Placed in the middle of the album, in fourth position, Marion’s Theme fromIndiana Jones and the Raiders of the Ark Lost is both the most tender and the most magnetic. The soprano saxophone deploys a poetic lyricism that blends with the crystalline and candid sound of the piano.

More mysterious, since taken from the saga Harry Potter, Hedwig’s Themethe most emblematic, originally in three stages, is binarized here, which gives it a very New Orleans groove, led by Sylvain Gontard’s trumpet.

Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, if he is not by John Williams is undoubtedly in our collective memories and delivers a melody, a rhythm and a narration so close to those of the American composer that it is anchored here like a piece of echoing story. A Proust madeleine also for Benjamin Petit, who remembers the R5 journeys of his childhood, enveloped by this music, bringing in inclinations à la Avishai Cohen.

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes taken from Cinderella by Walt Disney, composed by Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingstone, is the second title which is not by John Williams but acts as a nod to the popular songs that musicians like to cover, here reworked in a fast bebop way by the voice of Camille Bertault. The last title Recollections find the atmosphere of the film Catch Me If You Can . A lesser-known melody, it develops like an intimate specter for Benjamin Petit, who lends itself to the game of confidences to evoke, echoing the father-son relationship of Christopher Walken and Leonardo DiCaprio, the love and lack of his father, felt in the ballad spirit and the blues atmosphere of this last title. Let’s not forget that by writing to John Williams, Benjamin Petit is also addressing a spiritual father…

Where to listen to Benjamin Petit

• In Paris on October 19 at theWarehouse at 9 p.m., for the release party from the album released on October 14, 2022.

With
Benjamin Petit (tenor saxophone)
Julia Perminova (piano)
Jean-Francois Valade (guitar)
Jeremy Bruyere (double bass)
Raphael Pannier (drums)
Camille Bertault (vocals)