New'Garo
Gabi Hartmann

Conductor, orchestrater and bassist Fred Pallem will be directing a superb muster of musicians to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Claude Nougaro's passing on 2 March 2024. Souad Massi, Marion Rampal, Sanseverino, Mélissa Laveaux, Gabi Hartmann, Thomas de Pourquery, Babx, Jowee Omicil, André Minvielle and Ray Lema will all play their parts against the dark curtain of the Viennese night.

'Jazz runs through my cells' was something the Toulouse native liked to say, just as he would rub words together 'like little stones to see the sparks they created'. Hence, let there be jazz through his great standards, which from L’Île Hélène  ('Helen's Island') to La pluie fait des claquettes ('Rain's tap-dance'), Le Chat  ('The Cat') and Cécile, ma fille ('Cécile, my daughter') have brought joy to several generations of swing lovers enchanted by his classic French lyrics. 'As a songwriter, my work is first and foremost about getting singers to rise from their own ashes'; through its members, New'Garo will doubtless provide a fitting celebration and festive reinvention of the legacy of a true poet who never failed to infuse speech with music.

Now here is a jazz singer who stands out from the crowd... That could be because Gabi Hartmann is not just a jazz singer: she introduces herself as a 'singer, lyricist, composer and guitarist', i.e., as what many would describe as a fully-fledged singer-songwriter. Gabi Hartmann found her voice — a blend of jazz and folk — in the US; in New York specifically, where she recorded several songs for her debut and eponymous album with a helping hand from producer Jesse Harris, who has also worked with Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux and Melody Gardot. She conceived the album with which she introduced herself so gracefully to the world as a collection of songs reflecting her sources of inspiration and emotions, ranging between joy and melancholy — sometimes both simultaneously. But it's more than that too: the pieces offer an intimate window onto the inner life of an intrepid traveller, a Wanderer upon the Earth (from the French title of one of her songs 'Une errante sur la Terre'). She sings in both French and English — sometimes switching from one language to the other within the same song —, but also in Arabic — a reflection of her longstanding collaboration with Sudanese musicians — and in Portuguese — Brazilian Portuguese specifically, following a year spent sampling styles, harmonies and rhythms in Rio. A plausible theory for why the title of Gabi Hartmann's album is simply her name is that she's poured her heart into it...

Line-up :

• Gabi Hartmann (vocals, guitar)
• Robby Marshall (clarinet, saxophone)
• Abdoulaye Kouyate (guitar)
• Florian Robin (piano)
• Elaine Beaumont (double bass)
• Bruno Marmey (percussions)