Minnesota sur Seine has a confirmed line up including: Anthony Cox, Fat Kid Wednesdays, Stokley Williams, Happy Apple, Jello Slave, Geoge Cartwright and Curlew, Chris Thomson and Brother Ali from the Twin Cities. National and international participants include:Evan Parker, Benoit Delbecq, Peter Brotzman, Ursus Minor, Tony Hymas, Bernard Lubat, Denis Colin, Pablo Cueco, Didier Petit, Regis Huby, Jacky Molard, Helene Labarriere, Janick Martin, Francois Corneloup, Mark Sanders, Umar bin Hassin Jef Lee Johnson and French Actress Natalie Richard among others.
A highlight of this year's festival will be a performance by a group of six Moroccan women singers called B'net Houariyat, who sing, dance, and chant in a trance like style of music. Based in Marrakech, Morocco, they have recorded with Peter Gabriel as well as our own Happy Apple.
“Minnesota sur Seine” translates to “Minnesota on the Scene” (the Seine is the famous river running through Paris), and pays homage to the exciting musical exchange developing between the Twin Cities and Paris. A host of pioneering musicians from both River towns will come together for an adventure in music and cross-cultural collaboration. Each night will feature two concerts with combinations showing both French and Minnesotans in collaboration.
The burgeoning connection began in 2000 when Michel Portal, a reed player and leading figure in modern European jazz, along with iconoclastic French record producer Jean Rochard, visited the Twin Cities. Excited about what they found, the team entered Creation Audio in Minneapolis and recorded a CD called Minneapolis (Universal Music Jazz France / 2001) with Portal (bass clarinet, saxophones, bandoneon), Vernon Reid of Living Colour (guitar), Tony Hymas of Jeff Beck fame (keyboards), Sonny Thompson (bass, rap) and Michael Bland (drums). Minneapolis became jazz record of the year in France and had the best jazz record sales of the year 2001. It was followed with a live CD, Minneapolis We Insist, documenting a French tour that culminated with a tremendous success at Paris Olympia and even a box set entitled Dipping in Minneapolis.
In addition to the Minneapolis project, the Portal/Rochard visit resulted in multiple invitations for Twin Cities artists to visit Paris. News from The Jungle, Denis Colin with Gwen Matthews, Happy Apple, Ursus Minor, Anthony Cox Regional Jazz Trio and Fat Kid Wednesdays performed at the French festival Sons d’Hiver and toured extensively throughout France.
The creative Twin Cities/Paris confluence did not stop there, however. Twin Cities-based Happy Apple's 2003 release Youth Oriented (Universal Jazz France) was produced by Jean Rochard. The CD emerged as a hot critics' pick, reaching the front page of the very selective French Jazz magazine and garnering rave reviews in the U.S. and abroad. Their new CD, The Peace Between our Companies, is scheduled for release this fall and is an encore of the winning Jean Rochard-Universal France combination.
French bass clarinet player Denis Colin and his trio recorded with The Steeles, Wain Mc Farlane, Gwen Matthews and Mike Scott, all from the Twin Cities. The 2002 release Something in Common, featuring the compositions of various artists, won accolades from none other than Archie Shepp himself.
St. Paul native drummer Dave King, from both Happy Apple and Bad Plus, joined the international quartet Ursus Minor, consisting of Tony Hymas, Jef Lee Johnson and François Corneloup, who premiered in Paris with guitar hero Jeff Beck.
The fruitful and exciting jazz connections between the Twin Cities and Paris have been mostly revealed only to French music fans, who have enthusiastically embraced the collaboration. The Minnesota sur Seine music festival brings this incredible melding of talents back to where it all began – the Twin Cities.
Need to know what it's all about, or relive last years festival? Check out All About Jazz.