François Couturier UN JOUR SI BLANC

An autonomous and captivating album in its own right, “Un jour si blanc” was conceived by François Couturier as a second volume in an ideational trilogy, and an extension of the earlier “Nostalghia: Song for Tarkovsky” (ECM 1979).. The poetic approach of that disc – evident in the playing itself and in the referential and allusive conception – finds an echo in this solo piano album. 

It’s the French pianist’s first solo album, and a richly creative contribution also to the unaccompanied piano genre established at ECM long ago with landmark recordings of Chick Corea, Paul Bley, and Keith Jarrett. “Un jour si blanc” was produced by Manfred Eicher at the Auditorio Radio Svizzera, Lugano – already a noted space for ECM recordings, including Stefano Bollani’s “Piano Solo” and Marilyn Crispell’s solo “Vignettes”.
The new album’s starting point was a poem by Andrei Tarkovsky’s father, Arseni Tarkovsky, which gives the disk its title. After this, the recording opens up associatively, making improvisational interconnections. “I wanted to pay tribute to some great artists I particularly like”, says Couturier.
These include Johann Sebastian Bach, Arthur Rimbaud, the painters of the Blaue Reiter group, Claude Debussy, Franz Schubert, Toru Takemitsu, Joan Miró and more. “Lune de miel”, meanwhile, quotes liberally from “I Fall In Love Too Easily”. But if standard jazz is a component of this disc it is filtered through the focus of a player steeped in the European tradition, a player who can readily access the history of classical music and contemporary composition, and a sense for structure is paramount, even when Couturier is in full improvisational flow. (ECM Records)