Paris (AFP)

"All are musicians who have moved the lines, shaking up the codes and trying to create something else," says the president of Banlieues Bleues in Seine-Saint-Denis about the protagonists from jazz or elsewhere, of the 37th edition of the festival which starts Friday.

Until April 3, the sequano-dyonisian scenes from Pantin to Tremblay, via Saint-Ouen, will become as many fields of musical experimentation for the young French scene, multiple, and musicians from Colombia, Senegal, from Europe, New York, Lagos, Canada, the Caribbean, Somaliland. No instructions related to the coronavirus should hinder the smooth running of the festival, according to its organizers.

The music on offer is very diverse: jazz, rap, electro, blues, Creole, African, Oriental music ...

"The spectrum is open, we are interested in everything," says Xavier Lemettre, who presides over the destinies of Banlieues Bleues and places "artistic value before notoriety".

Few festivals can claim to have in their program Lucrecia Dalt, a Colombian who makes her electronic music in Berlin, the impertinent Ghanaians of Fokn Bois, the Haitian-born New Orleans girl Leyla McCalla, or Jerusalem in my Heart, Audiovisual show around Arab music concocted by a Lebanese-Canadian duo.

"Globalization has existed for a long time," says Xavier Lemettre, who dates it from the 17th century, when pirates, sailors and slaves crossed the oceans. "But it is accelerating".

Migrations will also be the theme of one of the creations - an important dimension of the festival, which offers 12, some of which involve the young local population - of "BB", titled by the poet-rappers Mike Ladd, Sarr Aka Tie and Juice Aleem.

- Targeted Africa -

On the musical map, Banlieues Bleues ticked Africa more particularly this year.

Through his alumni, still "super great musicians" according to Xavier Lemettre: the drummer Tony Allen, the inventor of afro-beat, the Malian keyboard player Cheikh Tidiane Seck, for an inspired tribute to jazz pianist Randy Weston, Nigerian saxophonist Femi, one of the sons of the great Fela Anipulapo Kuti.

But also through his new generations with Fokn Bois, Ghanaians who do something very modern and go against clichés on Africa with songs full of humor and quite critical of tradition, or Guiss Guiss Bou Bess where Senegalese and French try to marry electro sounds and sabar drums.

Banlieues Bleues always gives a voice to the new French underground scene, with the improvisational duo Qonicho Ah! or pianist Xavier Camarasa and his quintet.

He also cultivates a form of loyalty: the saxophonist Sylvain Rifflet, the Franco-Ivorian flautist Magik Malik, the double bassist Sarah Murcia, the group Papanosh with the chatter André Minvielle, the trombonist Fidel Fourneyron are now alumni there.

"The first time I worked with them was fifteen years ago. Since then, I've done quite a few things there, two creations, residences, educational actions," says the trombonist. Fidel Fourneyron, former member of the National Jazz Orchestra of Daniel Yvinec.

"For me it is an essential place in the life of a slightly open jazz. The festivals of this size which do this work are rare and precious. It is really a place where we can go to discover things ".

Like "Animal", one of the last sound fantasies of Fourneyron who wanted to describe in music the life and movements of characters from the animal world like the cat or the whale.

© 2020 AFP