PianoForte PianoForte

• 1 Poinciana 04:48
• 2 Celia 04:41
• 3 Águas de Março 04:26
• 4 The Windup 04:42
• 5 Um Anjo 02:54
• 6 Butterfly 03:18
• 7 Ecaroh 05:25
• 8 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy 04:48
• 9 Chorinho 05:16
• 10 Ecaroh 04:41
• 11 Um Anjo 03:03
• Total Runtime 48:02

Info for PianoForte

The four most talented pianists get together to form PianoForte! Four great pianists share 2 pianos and 2 Fender Rhodes for an unprecedented and tantalising encounter. Each in their own style, these keyboard musketeers have left their mark on the history of French jazz. Just one of many examples? They each have a Victoire du Jazz award on their mantelpiece.

The album is ‘a deeper reflection, the result of concert work’, explains Eric Legnini. The eleven reinterpreted tracks, inspired by artists such as Bud Powell, Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock, were recorded at the Studio de Meudon by Julien Bassères and mixed in Paris by Eric Legnini at the MooGoo Studio. The album ranges from Poinciana (composed by Nat Simon), popularised by Ahmad Jamal, to Bud Powell's Celia, Keith Jarrett's The Windup and Herbie Hancock's Butterfly. Full of nuance, virtuosity and above all generosity, this four-part dialogue is well worth the diversions.

Eric Legnini, piano, Fender Rhodes
Baptiste Trotignon, piano, Fender Rhodes
Bojan Z, piano, Fender Rhodes
Pierre de Bethmann, piano, Fender Rhodes

Eric Legnini
first made his mark in the mid-1990s as the young, discreet but highly talented pianist of the Stefano Di Battista quartet. His piano was a perfect foil for the fiery and voluble alto saxophonist. His open, generous style springs directly from the dark heart of jazz : rich phrasing, refined and sensual, always marrying itself effortlessly to the melody and the vocal. An exceptional talent for swing, grounded in a rigor and sobriety in his rhythmic placing worthy of the great masters of the hard bop. It was not long before Legnini became the grounding element amongst the disparate temperaments of the Di Battista quartet, as well as one of the most requested sidemen of the Rue des Lombards set.

Ten years have passed since his arrival on the international jazz scene—ten years during which the pianist has thrown himself heart and soul into a maelstrom of projects, while never ceasing to place his talent at the disposal of others. Today, at 35, Legnini has reached full stylistic maturity, and has decided to celebrate by finally stepping out of the sidelines with Miss Soul, his first major album on a French label. It is an opportunity to enable a wider public to enjoy his rich seductive musical universe, and his totally original way of marrying tradition and modernity, artistic savvy and popular expression. A chance to discover (or rediscover) a great musician.

Eric Legnini was born in Belgium, on February 20th, 1970. He passed a childhood immersed in Bach and Puccini. In the beginning of the 1980s, the discovery of an Erroll Garner album revealed an entirely new musical horizon, especially when it came to keyboards. With his exceptional ear for music, he tinkered with these strange harmonies seized on the fly and quickly fell under the spell of jazz—Eric had found his means of expression.

In 1987, he encountered, one of the major figures of Belgian and European jazz, saxophonist Jacques Pelzer, who invited him to perform a duo with him, then to join his band. It was a decisive point in his career that helped the young pianist deepen his knowledge and widen his repertoire of standards and thrust him into the ranks of the most promising young sidemen on the Belgian jazz scene. He was then recording his first album as principal performer on the Igloo label, Essentials, when he suddenly decided to go study in the US. It was 1988, and Eric was barely eighteen.

He remained in New York for two years—time enough to take the pulse of the cosmopolis. He also discovered another interest : rap, and such artists as Public Enemy and Ice-T— Legnini’s other great passion. He also managed to pick up a few courses at Long Island University with Richie Beirach, but above all he was getting “on-the-job training,” spending his nights in epic jam sessions in the company of the finest flower of the young jazz musicians of the period (Vincent Herring, Ravi Coltrane, Branford Marsalis, Kenny Garrett…). Through the medium of Kenny Kirkland’s voluble and precise style, Legnini began to appreciate the seminal importance of Herbie Hancock in the history of piano jazz, and from then on he became a devotee of that free hard bop that is a standard of the modern Blue Note esthetic of the 1960’s.

Under the double aegis of Kirkland and Hancock, Legnini returned to Belgium in 1990. He immediately obtained a position as a professor of jazz piano in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels meanwhile he hooked up with the great Toots Thielemans and joined his orchestra. There, for almost two years, he performed concerts and toured around the world. He now began an extensive amount of studio work, experimenting with funk, rap and electronic music. Now established as one of the pillars of the Belgian jazz scene, Legnini’s life took another turn in 1992, when he met two Italian musicians at a Brussels club one night—trumpeter Flavio Boltro and saxophonist Stefano Di Battista, then playing with Laurent Cugny. The three men immediately clicked and they decided to work together, form a band and try their luck in Paris. ...

Baptiste Trotignon
(born in 1974) began playing the piano at the age of six. He discovered and taught himself jazz and improvisation as a teenager. In 1994 he played both the piano and a role in Alain Corneau's movie "Le Nouveau Monde", and one year later he decided to move to Paris.

In 1998, he formed his first two trio albums "Fluide" and "Sightseeing" at the age of 26 brought him to people's attention as one of the most spectacular, complete and charming member of a new generation of pianists. He won many awards - Django d'Or, Prix Django Reinhardt de l'Académie du Jazz, Best French Newcomer at the 2003 Victoires du Jazz - as well as winning the Grand Prix at the 2002 Martial Solal International Jazz Piano Competition. Baptiste followed this up with two solo piano albums ("Solo" and "Solo II") in 2003, which both received major public and critical acclaim, and he began to perform at many major French and international venues: Salle Pleyel, Marciac, Montréal, Vienne, Nice, Montreux, Toronto, La Roque d'Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins, etc.

Over the years that followed he developed a number of eclectic encounters, performing alongside top-quality improvisers like Tom Harrell and Brad Mehldau, and he was also artistic director for tribute evenings to Edith Piaf and Claude Nougaro at Montreux Jazz Festival, composed film music for Claude Goretta's "Sartre"...

Baptiste's first "American" album, "Share", was recorded in New York and came out in early 2009, with masters of jazz like Tom Harrell or Mark Turner as guests. The album was a hit and was followed by a highly charged live album recorded in London ("Suite..." 2010).

In November 2011 he was awarded the Sacem's Grand Prix.

In 2012, as well as playing over 80 concerts in Europe and Asia, Baptiste released a stunningly bold album in the autumn called "Song Song Song", on which he celebrated his love of the vocalist's art and invited a prestigious group of artists including Melody Gardot to take part in his project. At the same time was created his piano concerto "Different Spaces", his first major non-improvised orchestral piece, performed by Nicholas Angelich. It received an enthusiastic welcome and Baptiste was named Composer of the Year at the 2014 Victoires de la Musique Classique.

After recording an album of acoustic ballads with saxophonist Mark Turner ("Dusk is a Quiet Place" 2013), the 40-year-old musician Le Monde has described as "a lesson, a model, perfection from A to Z" has now returned to the art of the trio with "Hit", for which he has teamed up with American groove master Jeff Ballard.

In 2016, while he's releasing a gorgeous original project mixing jazz and classical music on Kurt Weill with american mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey ("Thousands of miles", acclaimed by "New-York Times"), he signs with the major label company Sony Music, releasing first two co-leaded albums showing his love for South-American musical traditions: "Chimichurri" with Argentinian percussionist Minino Garay and "Ancestral Memories" with Afro-Cuban saxophonist Yosvany Terry.

In 2018, while he becomes "Steinway Artist" and receives the prestigious Echo Jazz award in Germany as Best Instrumentalist-Keyboards category, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France creates his first symphonic piece "Hiatus et turbulences". At the end of the year is also created his second piece for piano and orchestra "L'air de rien", commission from Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, concert where he also plays for the first time Mozart 1st Piano Concertobefore playing a bit later the 9th Concerto "JeuneHomme"!

His album "You've changed" is getting released in 2019: new songs played solo piano and an incredible series of duets with guests like Joe Lovano, Avishai Cohen, Ibrahim Maalouf, Camélia Jordana...

After 2 years spent mainly on orchestral composition ("Move", his Trumpet Concerto for Romain Leleu, and "Anima" his first symphony), and some original projects like a duet with Arthur Teboul ("Feu Chatterton"), he joins back in 2023 record label Naïve with "Brexit Music", 100% jazz groove trio with songs from UK pop music from Beatles to Radiohead!

Some of the musicians he has played and/or worked with: (alphabetical order)

Jeanne Added, Nicholas Angelich, Jeff Ballard, Stephane Belmondo, André Ceccarelli, Natalie Dessay, Stefano Di Battista, Avishai Cohen, Thomas Enhco, Melody Gardot, Tom Harrell, Camélia Jordana, Angelique Kidjo, Bireli Lagrène, Paul Lay, Romain Leleu, Joe Lovano, Ibrahim Maalouf, Brad Mehldau, Christophe Miossec, Milton Nascimento, Vincent Peirani, Michel Portal, Enrico Rava, Aldo Romano, Vincent Segal, Archie Shepp, Didier Squiban, Arthur Teboul, Alexandre Tharaud, Mark Turner, Jeff "Tain"Watts, Kenny Wheeler...

And also l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, l'Orchestre National d'Ile-de-France, le Stuttgart Philharmoniker, Sascha Goetzel, Ariane Matiakh...

Bojan Z
Multiple award-winning pianist Bojan Z (for Zulfikarpasic) was born in former Yugoslavia in 1968 and grew up in an environment where music was a widespread, daily activity.

Starting classical piano lessons at the age of 5, he found himself in the Belgrade rock scene as a youngster, obtained a scholarship at the age of 18 to study jazz with Clare Fischer in the US, to be awarded ‘Best Young Jazz Musician of Yugoslavia’ a few years later. At the age of 20 he left his hometown and settled in Paris, where he established himself as an inevitable element of the French jazz scene.

Pierre de Bethmann
Born in 1965 and raised in Paris, France, Pierre de Bethmann began classical piano lessons at age 6, and soon discovered the world of jazz. He continued his musical and regular studies apace, graduated from ESCP in 1987 (major French graduate school of management), and studied one year at Berklee College of Music (Boston) in 1989. He started working as a management consultant for five years, before abandoning the desk to become a fulltime professional musician in 1995.

He first co-founded trio PRYSM with Christophe Wallemme and Benjamin Henocq. From 1995 to 2001, Prysm recorded four albums on Blue Note, performed over fifty concerts a year, including several tours in the U.S., Canada, Japan, major European festivals and the Middle East.

He then raised another project in 2001, under the code name ILIUM, exclusively based on original music, which recorded four albums in different combos, and lately a 10 to 12 piece MEDIUM ENSEMBLE, which has played in many major French venues, and released three albums between 2014 and 2019.

He currently leads an acoustic TRIO with Sylvain Romano and Nelson Veras mainly focused on standards from many musical traditions, whose fifth album was released in january 2023, a new QUARTET marked by both his own compositional research and his long-term collaboration with saxophonist David El Malek, and co-leads the four keyboard project PIANOFORTE with Baptiste Trotignon, Bojan Z and Eric Legnini.

He created his own label ALEA in 2015, and has led several artistic residencies in France, in Opéra de Lyon in 2006, in Théâtre de L"Onde à Vélizy between 2008 and 2010, in L'apostrophe, scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise, between 2012 and 2015, and Saint-Quentin en Yvelines between 2016 and 2018.

He has recorded more than twenty albums as a leader or co-leader, has taught at the CNSMDP (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris) since 2008, and was named Steinway Artist in 2023 ...

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