Laurent De Wilde

Biography

Laurent de Wilde is a composer, pianist and writer. His albums have met with public and critical success since Off the boat in 1987. From the 2000s onwards, he has pursued increasingly varied projects: the continuation of his jazz trio (Over the Clouds, album of the year for Jazz Magazine, Télérama, TSF jazz), electronic music (Fly, Fly Superfly!), in-depth collaboration with artists such as Jacques Gamblin and Abd Al Malik (Prix Constantin, Victoires de la musique) or exploration of the small screen with two documentaries for Arte on Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. He records Riddles, a two-piano album with African legend Ray Lema, released in October 2016. The duo performs regularly on French and European stages. His biography of pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (Monk, Gallimard) made its mark in 1996, and Les fous du son. D’Edison à nos jours (Grasset) describes the saga of keyboard inventors in the 20th century. His collaborations are manifold. For the centenary of Monk’s birth, in 2017 he released the album New Monk Trio with double bassist Jérôme Regard and drummer Donald Kontomanou, which received the Prix du disque français from the Académie du jazz. In 2018, he was voted artist of the year at the Victoires du jazz awards.

Conference: Are musicians time makers?

The time inaugurated by the music, outside current biological time, is based in jazz on the rhythm section. The bassist and drummer open up a space when they start playing, they move the ensemble forward, and the challenge is to make this temporal and musical construction hold together harmoniously, and efficiently too. This gives you an idea of the aesthetic complexity involved!