Vincent Peirani and Émile Parisien are rightly considered among the leading players of the generation of 40-year-old French jazz musicians. They both had a solid academic education and fell in love with jazz music in their youth, trying to innovate its language without forgetting its roots and listening to transalpine traditions. Accordionist Peirani was born in Nizza; saxophonist Parisien comes from Cahors, Occitania. They played together in the Daniel Humair quartet – a great French jazz musician – but Parisien also performed in Peirani’s debut album.
Their duo performance was captured on a beautiful recording in 2014, “Belle Époque”, on the ACT label. “Abrazo”, released a few years later, is another duo album.
The music they create is fascinating and refined – both in phrasing and sound – and in keeping with the identity of French music across time and genre.
Today, they are highly acclaimed in the world of jazz. Le Monde has called Parisien “the best new thing that has happened in European jazz for a long time”, and for Süddeutsche Zeitung, “What Peirani coaxes out of the piano accordion is something the likes of which has never been heard before”.
