Mario Canonge & Michel Zenino "Paraphrases"

For eighteen years they have been extending their musical adolescence - in a top-of-the-class version -, having fun diverting the "classical texts" that are jazz standards into so many games of hide-and-seek, of "right hand or left hand?", of disappearances-reappearances... Of reappropriation, for sure. Claude Nougaro nicely called this recreation, a happy double meaning to remind us that it is first and foremost a game. The boppers had made it a learned art of composition, climbing the melodies of musicals by the harmonic side.
Faithful to their now historic residency at the Baiser Salé (since 2008!), Mario Canonge and Michel Zenino delve into songs from the 1930s or 40s; for the most part, before making them resurface here and now. In their fingers, almost a century of jazz; in their ears, this ability to listen to each other that makes great duos. Not just for the art of conversation, they have a tightrope walker side dancing together on the wire, but for the "board game" they offer, the series of riddles to decipher. It takes years of sending each other baseline exchanges to climb to the net together as they do on Night in Tunisia or Jitterburg Waltz, The Preacher or Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams. It's your turn.