Nice trio for Nougaro

Babx, André Minvielle and Thomas de Pourquery at the Nuits de Fourvière 2018. © Paul Bourdrel

01/03/2020

Three accomplices, three poets - the vocalchemist troubadour André Minvielle, the goldsmith of piano words Babx and the supersonic saxophonist Thomas de Pourquery - have come together to simmer a tasty tribute to Claude Nougaro. A tender and delicious cake, to listen to without moderation.

When he climbs on the stage of the Palais des Sports de Pau, that evening, Claude Nougaro sings Quatre boules de cuir. And André Minvielle takes a slap ... Nearly fifty years later, the musician and singer still does not recover from this uppercut. " This concert was the electric shock of my seventeen years, the thing that made me move my ass, to create, to play. For me, Nougaro, it was, according to the formula of the playwright André Benedetto , " the obstacle as a crossing point . When you sing with the accent of the Southwest, the comparison is inevitably necessary. It has set the bar high, very high, " he said.

Years later, back in Toulouse, after a jazz exile in Uzeste, "Dede" crosses his idol on his doorstep: " He was clapping. I greet him. His partner, Hélène, slips him: ' you know, it's André Minvielle from the Lubat company! " Nougaro retraces his steps and whispers in my ear: 'I was born in a lapse of memory!' " The two men will become friends. Nougaro writes two titles for Minvielle which he sings today on the disc which has just appeared, soberly entitled Nougaro : C'est non! Et K-You K-Yaw. André will even live there. 'one of Claude's apartments in Toulouse, after his death.

"The storm takes out its furniture"

Babx, the second protagonist, also reveals an intimate story with Nougaro, a poet whose words and music have "inhabited" him since childhood. One day, fate gets involved: " I was 18 years old. And I was about to play the first concert of my life. I am going to rue des Écoles to print flyers. And just before taking the metro, I "Enter a Lebanese man for a drink. Leaning on the counter, I see him passing like an arrow. I jump up and say :" Monsieur Nougaro, may I invite you for a coffee? " We spent an hour chatting with jazz, poetry, Minvielle, my idol. We were on the terrace at the end of March. And from the sky, they were beginning to tumble down. He said: 'The storm is coming out his furniture. I have to go . "He leaves me his address so that we can continue the discussion. Six months later, he died ... But his formula," the storm takes out his furniture "remained in me: an incantation , a mantra, in the crosshairs of everything I write. "

The third thief, Thomas de Pourquery did not want to speak on the subject, but Babx evokes, about his friend saxophonist, an intense family history, against a backdrop of Nougaro. So, in 2014, when the Marathon des Mots (Toulouse Literature Festival, editor's note) offered Babx a creation around the poet, he naturally brought his two friends together.

Between the guinea fowl and the cheese

The first meetings of this triumvirate take place in a village in the Pyrenees, at Dédé Minvielle's. The master said: " Everyone came with their little piece of nougat. And we worked between the guinea fowl and the sheep's cheese."

To work, really? Babx specifies: " Among the three, I felt the duty to play the role of the solid guy between these two masters of free-style, these two crazy dogs. We arrive at André's house at the end of the morning. ' Could we work a little? ' I suggest, " Ah no! It's aperitif time! ", they retort me. After the aperitif, I come up with the idea of ​​making some music. "No, there’s the guinea fowl that cooks! ' After eating, very round, we went for a walk in the river. In the evening, there was a rugby match ... Sacred! And when I timidly repeated the hypothesis of taking our instruments, I was told that it was dinner time ... The next day, Thomas had to leave. And then it was the intermittent workers' strike. In the end, we never rehearsed ... "

On D-Day, the three accomplices mentally develop a semblance of structures. And grace, magic gets involved. Each of them, in the attitude of listening to a hunting dog, bounces on the poetry of their neighbor, seizes it, tracks down ideas, the grain of madness. And Babx to draw its conclusions: " In fact, that was the repetition: eating, having a good time. In the end, on this project, we always proceeded like that." Besides, Minvielle adds: "Nougaro had that voice, between the opera ... and the aperitif. To sing well, you have to drink. To drink like to sing is to restore!"

Play (at) Nougaro

By their conviviality and letting go, the three thieves therefore "played Nougaro". A logic that Babx explains: " Nougaro, a little apart from the pantheon composed of Brel, Brassens, Ferré, even Gainsbourg, leaves a lot of room in his creations. These songs are constructed like standards: materials for the 'improvisation, accident, etc. "

And in these songs, the three did indeed take their place, and left some air, so that the chances flow. A few concerts, a recording session ... And here is this beautiful disc, woven with delicacy, feet of nose and poetry. Far from the deferential homage, it stands out as a succession of irreverent and tender tracks, funny and mischievous, right in the spirit of Nougaro.

To take up literally the creations of the sacred monster would have been risky. The three emancipate themselves from it, while retaining their respect for the master: thus they resume Cécile, my daughter in instrumental; thus De Pourquery whispers, in intimate lapping, Breathless ; thus they deliver a minimalist version of The rain makes tap dancing .

And in Locomots' rhythms, in its wagons, scraps of famous worms, rhymes of the poet and testimonies are telescoped. Word games enter in pileup, three voices spin, collide, kiss ... And, among them, as if by miracle, a breath, a sound, a voice seems to arise. And we are surprised to dream that it is indeed the fourth thief: the spirit of Nougaro, come to visit them.

Babx, André Minvielle, Thomas de Pourquery Nougaro (La Familia de Francia) 2019

Babx Official Site / Facebook Page

By: Anne Laure Lemancel

Claude Nougaro - Babx - André Minvielle - Thomas de Pourquery

French song - Jazz - France - album