New Jazz Musette

Plenty of artists venerate and emulate Astor Piazzolla. His distinctive signature sound, prolific output and long career left a huge back catalogue for virtuosic, if less original, musicians to delve into. French accordionist Richard Galliano has never hidden his admiration for the composer, recording numerous tributes and covers for more than two decades. For his latest release, New Jazz Musette, Galliano says he has re-created a new version of musette – an early 20th-century Italo-French popular music – that has been inspired by Piazzolla’s nuevo tango, ‘because I think that this music cannot be played the way it was played in the 1930s.’ He also cites among his influences John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Claude Debussy.

The melodies, the mood and the pulses of the opener, ‘A French Touch’ are certainly Piazzolla-esque. Next comes ‘Billie’, a gentle melding of Seine-side accordion strains and tango-toned patterns. In fact, as the album proceeds across its 18 tracks, Galliano’s squeezebox often exhales the melancholy airs of Buenos Aires, while guitarist Sylvain Luc, Philippe Aers on bass and André Ceccarelli on percussion weave in looser, jazzier deviations. Ultimately this album is less of a reworking of traditional musette – which tended to be lively, jiggy and jolly – and more of an original and intriguing homage to Astor Piazzolla himself.