RÉSURGENCE

Jacques Thollot was a child prodigy when it came to the drums, playing live on stage with some of the Jazz greats back in the day in his early teens. He would continue in that jazz direction eventually getting into free jazz before turning all avant on us with this debut album from 1971. Like John Coltrane and many other talented jazz guys before him, I think Jacques out of boredom more than anything turns to the avant-garde. His debut was a do it yourself affair and a failure in my opinion. So difficult in so many ways. I do not have the next record by him called "Watch Devil Go" but "Resurgence" is his third studio album from 1977 and more of a band effort here.

Much better than the debut but still, this isn't my music. Some female vocals and male operatic ones too, giving this a slight zeuhl vibe here, slight. For me it's the sax, fender rhodes and clavinet that I really enjoy but not much else. This is a six piece band here and Jacques brought in a percussionist who would later go on to play for CODONA. The female singer sang on that UTOPIC SPORADIC ORCHESTRA album along with Stella Vander and most of MAGMA. The horn player played on CLEARLIGHT's "Forever Blowing Bubbles" record. And lastly the keyboardist played with Seffer and Truong in a band called PERCEPTION long before ZAO became a band. So some pedigree here for sure but man Jacques knows how to create difficult music.

So just not a lot here that I'm into, but man that one song really stands out called "Si Siggy Sonne" with the drums, fender rhodes and flute leading the way. And thankfully it's one of the three long tracks on here at around 8 minutes. A low 3 stars for this one. Complex yet playful.