Abrazo. Embrace. A close dance perhaps, but also with the hint of a friendly tussle.
Could there be a more fitting metaphor for the duo of accordionist Vincent Peirani and soprano saxophonist Émile Parisien? "It's like a marriage," says Peirani. "In the beginning everything’s just great, wonderful, paradise. But of course, after a while, it also becomes challenging, which is quite normal.
"Right now, we're just massively happy playing together." There can be very few musicians who have got to know each other as well as Peirani and Parisien have. They have clocked up well over 1000 concerts together in the past decade, of which more than 600 have been as a duo.
They first met in 2012 as members of drummer Daniel Humair’s quartet, and their very first appearance as a duo was an impromptu latenight club set while touring in Korea. "Une catastrophe! An unmitigated disaster"... Peirani still remembers it vividly.
But shortly later, with the benefit of no jetlag, and also having done some proper preparation, things did fall properly into place at a festival in France, and one of the outstanding lineups in European jazz was born. In 2014 their first duo album "Belle Epoque" was released on ACT.
From then on they started touring, and were soon playing at the leading clubs and festivals in France and Germany and setting off all over the world – to Asia, Latin America, the USA, Canada and throughout Europe. And also appearing in major classical venues such as the Philharmonie halls in Berlin, Hamburg, Essen and the Musikverein in Vienna.
And it was not long before international recognition became established, through prizes such as the Echo Jazz, Les Victoires du Jazz, the Preis der deutschen Schallplatten-kritik, and numerous awards and ‘best-of’ lists from leading jazz magazines.
