Leonardo Montana /  Record Design

Joruri

New collaboration with French label Émouvance on Leonardo Montana’s Solo Piano album « Joruri ».
I made the cover photo and the artwork on Bornholm.

Enregistré à / Recorded at the Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Prise de son et mixage / Sound engineering and mix: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard

Textes de pochette / Liner notes: Jean Rochard
Traduction / Translation: Aymeric Leroy
Photo couverture / Cover photo: Christian Kirk-Jensen
Photos livret / Booklet photos: Christophe Charpenel
Conception graphique / Graphic design: Christian Kirk-Jensen, Danish Pastry Design
Directrice de production / Executive producer: Françoise Bastianelli

Merci à toute ma famille

Remerciements particuliers à Claude Tchamitchian pour son accompagnement
dans la réalisation de ce projet.
Special thanks to Claude Tchamitchian for his support in the realization of this project.

Emouvance est membre des Allumés du Jazz
Emouvance is a member of Les Allumés du Jazz

Jōruri

Abound freely and begin with “Cœur” (“Heart”): in three acts and three languages (a four-scene first act in French, a four-scene second act in Portuguese – heard in Brazilian, a six-scene third act in English – heard, perhaps, in American jazz language), Jōruri perambulates in a sally where the supposedly disassociated and the dazzling outpouring of fresh meanings are questioned, mixed up, combined or merged.

On first impression, this is what a concise presentation, a rough (yet meticulously thought-out, as everything here encourages meticulousness) teaser for this incisive work, might look like. And the impression remains, grows and deepens as one enters the solidly contacted reliefs. In an open way, but with a very assured stroke – eager for detail – Leonardo Montana reveals himself. In utterances linked by sweeping observation, a feeling imbued by the ravages of past centuries as much as by age-old beauties, he stretches his bow, trying to reach, with each shot, traces of alchemy thought to be long-gone. He aims until they present a variety of responses and statements that make the dense walls permeable.

The narrator in Jōruri depicts the diversion of a world in 88 keys. Imagining a multitude of accompaniments, he follows the less-travelled side paths of daring moons, autonomous strolls or percussive shades, grasping common traits. A wheel in tension, he occasionally retraces his steps, throwing in a conundrum, seeking a more accurate, more ingenious, more determined appreciation, returning to the source of acrostics that, in these times of brutal drought, erupt in resplendent nourishing evidences: the discovery of iterative gardens under the rain.

This balanced expression plays with radiant flashes, uncovering a path of preferable ways to spend our days in the present. Each scene in the three acts of Jōruri’s story, in the music of Jōruri, is titled with a single word, a root word, a dizzying, clear, sharp word, opening a finale or concluding an overture on the most affectionate glimpse in the human adventure, that of the heart.

Jean Rochard