Vincent Courtois

Frank Woeste, Vincent Courtois & Ryan Keberle – Reverso – Shooting Star (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 47:26 minutes | 455 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alternate Side Records

The music of this album is inspired in various ways by the seminal French composer, Lili Boulanger, and her astoundingly beautiful music. Lili Boulanger’s musical accomplishments have yet to receive the universal celebration they deserve and this album looks to highlight her deeply compelling and inspiring music.

Special thanks to Villa Albertine, French American Cultural Exchange Foundation, The French Ministry of Culture, and Institut Français, who generously supported the making of this album through a Villa Albertine Jazz and New Music Grant.

(more…)

Frank Woeste, Ryan Keberle and Vincent Courtois – Reverso: Live (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 54:14 minutes | 586 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Outnote Records

From its debut with Suite Ravel in 2018, Reverso has established itself as a transoceanic and virtuoso jazz group whose compositions are inspired by classical French composers. To prepare for its second opus, The Melodic Line (a tribute to twentieth century composers belonging to the Group of Six), Reverso toured more than ten cities on two continents in February and March 2020. Its music was enriched. and deepened at each concert, culminating in an unforgettable performance at the Triton, in Paris, on March 13, 2021, recorded and filmed in high definition by France Musique for a national broadcast in the spring of this year. After listening to the band, the members of the trio – pianist Frank Woeste, trombonist Ryan Keberle and cellist Vincent Courtois – agreed that what happened that night was magical enough to make it into an album. The resulting Live showcases Reverso’s melodic qualities, ample tones and obvious chemistry.

(more…)

Frank Woeste, Vincent Courtois, Ryan Keberle – Reverso – Harmonic Alchemy (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:26 minutes | 1010 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Outnote Records

Continuing a century of mutual inspiration between two vast and interlocking musical worlds, Reverso further explores the interface between jazz and classical music.

After Suite Ravel , a first album inspired by the music of Maurice Ravel, The Melodic Line in homage to the composers of ‘Les Six’, and the release of a live album recorded at Le Triton in Paris, the transatlantic chamber jazz ensemble formed by American trombonist Ryan Keberle, Franco-German pianist Frank Woeste and French cellist Vincent Courtois now investigates the output of another exciting French composer, Gabriel Fauré.

Reverso blends ‘pulsating motifs, long painterly lines, open fields and pointillist statements into a fascinating whole’ (JazzTimes). After so many concerts and tours, the undeniable chemistry of the ensemble, the mutual confidence between the musicians and their magnificent musical production are fully in evidence. It’s a fair bet that the new album will be worthy of its predecessors!

(more…)

Frank Woeste, Ryan Keberle, Vincent Courtois – Reverso – The Melodic Line (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:58 minutes | 721 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Outnote Records

Reverso is a transatlantic group of outstanding improvisers, equally at home in jazz and classical music. ‘The Melodic Line’, the group’s second album, is set against the backdrop of Paris in the Années Folles and is inspired by the aesthetic of the composers of the Groupe des Six (Poulenc, Milhaud, Honegger, Auric, Tailleferre and Durey). Jean Cocteau said that the only common point between these composers, apart from their friendship, was their ‘salvation of melodic line’. Frank Woeste, co-leader and composer of the group, has developed, in the course of his albums and tours, a unique language that makes him an unclassifiable and polymorphous artist, a sideman with prestigious musicians but also a producer. Vincent Courtois, a stunning cellist, is as comfortable in the classical repertory as in free improvisations or indeed in chanson. Ryan Keberle, the trio’s other co-leader and composer, is one of today’s key trombonists on the New York scene, whether with his group ‘Catharsis’ or with Maria Schneider and Dave Douglas. All three pursue, with new points of reference, the same ambition, to ‘take music lovers out of their compartments and tune them to an unclassifiable “elsewhere”, impossible to label, where a certain French elegance meets American energy’ (Le Télégramme).

(more…)