INTERVIEW: With a dozen albums to his credit and almost as many projects, Jonas Cambien is a voice that counts on the jazz and impro scene in Europe.
Born in Belgium exactly 40 years ago, settled in Oslo for more than 15 years, French-speaking pianist Jonas Cambien is a true iconoclast, with an incredible sense of play. He is leading Maca Conu, a quartet that can be described as perfect. Here, the music is clever, funny, unchained and bears the stigmata of childhood creativity. Cambien, who signs all the compositions, surrounds himself with Signe Emmeluth (alto and tenor saxophones), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass) and Andreas Wildhagen (drums). The bouncy trombonist Guro Kvåle, joins them as a guest in this joyful gem.
With a dozen albums to his credit and almost as many projects, Cambien is a voice that counts on the jazz and impro scene in Europe.
« Exploding kunstkammer of curiosities », « Simulacra of bizarre », « Love for paradoxes (for the song « Question the Answer ») » the presentation of the music of this quartet lies in the lexical field of the “bizarre”. Was that a genre or style you had in mind?
– I like it when my music has some surprising or unusual elements that can spark a kind of joy to discover something. Like walking around in the street and stumbling upon a funny situation you didn’t expect or finding an object where it doesn’t belong.
I was kind of joking, knowing that what comes out first and foremost from listening of Maca Conu is the energy and the joy. But can you explain the origin of this name that sounds a little voodoo to my ears?
– Maca Conu doesn’t really mean anything. But ‘Macaco nu’ means ‘naked ape’ in Portuguese. This connotation brings us back to the evolutionary origins of music in humans, and to the joy and energy that I’m trying to achieve in my music. I chose the name because it sounds funny!
There is this art of permanent rupture in these compositions. Perhaps in the vein of a Paul Bley. The more we listen to this record, the more the melodies seem to be born in the arrangements and the more the titles become catchy. To what extent do you want to go towards free jazz? What is the balance point of a composition for you?
– I love melodies which stick to the brain and I love having a free approach to them. What I’m interested in is improvisations and interplay amongst musicians. Playing together, whatever that means. The melodies are a starting point to make something happen in the group, to facilitate improvisations and interactions. I want the musicians who play my compositions not to feel limited, but on the contrary to feel free with the material. That’s why I like sticky, hummable melodies, it’s easy to improvise with them. I love simple compositions and simple ideas. They allow you to stay focused on listening to what’s happening around you. If we reach a certain level of complexity while improvising together that’s beautiful, but it’s not the goal.
It is my approach with Maca Conu or Jonas Cambien Trio. With other bands I also love to play music which is entirely composed or entirely improvised. If I want to go towards free jazz? I mean, of course a lot of the sound of Maca Conu is clearly influenced by free jazz from the 60s, and there are other sources of inspiration as well. But we’re not trying to copy the pioneers of 60s avant-garde jazz. We’re just trying to make music that brings joy and energy, and at the same time surprise and challenge. These qualities are very present in classic freejazz.
Maca Conu. Photo: Nabeeh Samaan
You are usually and here on this project a piano, organ and keyboard player but I have seen you on stage on the soprano saxophone. Is it a good way to lose your habits ? Does this allow you to have a special relationship when writing and performing with Signe Emmeluth?
– I’ve been playing the saxophone since I was a kid. I started with alto and later picked up the soprano. But it has always been a second instrument besides piano. I never reached a professional level on the saxophone. In some way, I can express different things, and that can be very liberating. I don’t feel the same pressure from myself or others like when I’m playing the piano, an instrument I’m supposed to master somehow. It helps me a lot when I compose, I love recording the parts of the sax and drums when I compose new songs, rather than writing it down. Then I show those recordings to Signe and Andreas, and they learn the new songs by ear.
Finally, can you say a word about Andreas Wildhagen, who I really like and who is probably less known than the two other members of this quartet and yourself in French-speaking countries. You have been playing together for a long time.
– Oh, I love Andreas too! He was one of my first friends in Norway, when I moved to Oslo in 2008. He was also one of the first musicians I started jamming with in Norway. Through the years, we worked on different projects, most importantly Jonas Cambien Trio of course, a band we’ve been working with for almost a decade and released three albums. Andreas has been extremely important in defining the sound of this trio, and later on of Maca Conu.
He should be much more know abroad, he is not only a fantastic drummer, but also a great composer. He just released his first album as a band leader, Spiralis. Great album.
There is a funny story from my childhood linked to how I started playing music. When I was like 5, my parents wanted me to play music, and I wanted to pick up the drums. But my parents thought it would be good if I learn “a proper instrument” first, so I chose piano. We laugh a lot about this story now. I don’t regret at all to being a pianist, but I think I have a drummer in me, or a childhood dream to become a drummer. I think one of the reasons Andreas and me work so well together! He somehow reminds me of this childhood dream, with his spontaneous and intuitive way of playing the drums.
Very often when I compose new songs, I record the drums first. It’s an instrument on which I have even less skills than on the saxophone, but in the same way, it is so liberating. So I would record the drum parts, then let Andreas hear them as a way to explain him how the song works. We often have fun with this. He says I’m trying to make him play the drums as badly as I play (laughs), in a less controlled way, the way I child would play. I love that energy. If he sounds like someone or something is stumbling down the stairs of a percussion store, then I’m happy!
We listen to a lot of music together. One album we have been listening to a lot is The Empty Foxhole by Ornette Coleman. Denardo, Ornette’s son, is behind the drums aged 10! And Ornette himself is on trumpet and violin. Extremely inspiring, I love that album!
Interview by Anne Yven – first published in Citizen Jazz
