Three more concerts for Herve Trio

By Paul W. Blair

JAKARTA (JP): Most of the overseas musicians who took part in Jak Jazz '94 have already flown out of town. The majority were heading for places far different, both culturally and climatically, than Jakarta.

Herve and his comperes, on the other hand, are still in the country for three more concerts this week. They were in Yogyakarta on Tuesday evening, will be in Surabaya this evening and in Balikpapan on Saturday night. These appearances and his group's Jak Jazz participation have all been arranged by the local French Cultural Centre.

During his Jakarta stay, Herve recalled that he grew up in a home where both classical and jazz records were played. But, he says, he didn't really like his parents' Louis Armstrong and Oscar Peterson records until he was about twelve years old. "Then suddenly they really started to affect me. Their intensity and their swing touched me greatly."

"I spent ten years studying composition, classical piano and percussion at the Paris Conservatory," says Antoine Herve, "but ultimately the relative lack of freedom began to bother me. My piano teacher warned me over and over again that playing jazz would ruin my classical technique. By that time, though, I didn't care."

"Some time back, I went through a period when I was really involved in totally free improvisation. Then during the late Eighties I led a 17-piece big band playing a lot of funk-flavored heavily electronic music. It wore me out. Traveling around with such a big group, with all their instruments and all their different personalities, is very much like having to deal with an entire rugby team. This trio format suits me just fine."

Jak Jazz audiences who heard sets by Antoine Herve's trio also found much to enjoy. His partners are twin brothers: Francois Moutin on bass and Louis Moutin on drums. Both are self-taught musicians, with the latter displaying some particularly unconventional instrumental technique.

They sound wonderful as a unit. Their playing is sprinkled with delightful music and the visual interplay among them during the course of a tune is also a pleasure to witness. Herve says that playing with the Moutins makes him feel as if he's driving a finely-tuned and responsive Ferrari.

"We've worked together on and off for about six years. They have incredibly keen ears and react instantly to everything I play. The trio format can be quite orchestral. But at the same time, it lets me have lots of space and air and breathing room. When I came to the Jak Jazz festival last year, I played solo piano and mostly did my own compositions. With the trio, we're doing standard songs or jazz standards for the most part: Miles Davis' All Blues, Dave Brubeck's In Your Own Sweet Way, some Bill Evans tunes, Caravan, My Romance, both Rhythm-a-Ning and Well You Needn't by Thelonious Monk, things like that.

"We're finally going to make a trio recording in January, with release of the CD scheduled for March. And yes, I'd really like to come back to Indonesia. We'd be happy to play in jazz clubs or at universities and anywhere else for people who really want to listen. Still, it's so hard to sit at home in France and figure out how to work out the logistics. Whom do you call in Bandung or Singapore or Hong Kong to make the arrangements? Maybe someday there'll some kind of a network and an established circuit of clubs where we can perform. That would really be great."