ALAIN BOUHEY – La Voie Scriptorale (Self-Released - tribulation III-I/LP-1988)

Label: Alain Bouhey Self-Released ‎– tribulation III-I

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: 1988

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded At – Studio Adam, 1988. Mastered At – Top Master, France

Composed By – Yochk'o Seffer

Photography By – Roger Norymberg

Recorded By, Mixed By – Philippe Beaucamp

Sleeve, Concept By, Liner Notes, Producer – Alain Bouhey

Printed By – Glory / Pressed By – MPO

Includes 16-page booklet and poster

Matrix / Runout (runout side A, hand etched): MPO III 1 A1

Matrix / Runout (runout side B, hand etched): MPO III-1 B

A1 - Self-System .............................................................................................................. 5:15

         Piano – Yochk'o Seffer / Tenor Saxophone – Alain Bouhey

A2 - Trabla-Air ................................................................................................................. 4:30

         Piano – Yochk'o Seffer / Soprano Saxophone – Alain Bouhey

A3 - Techouba (Hommage A John Coltrane) .................................................................. 7:20

         Bass Clarinet, Woodwind [Trabla] – Yochk'o Seffer

         Tenor Saxophone – Alain Bouhey

B  -  Szerkezet I, Szoñata .............................................................................................. 19:21

    1     Allegro Vivo (6:03)

            Alto Saxophone – Alain Bouhey / Piano – Carol Lipkind

    2     Cadence (6:30)

            Alto Saxophone – Alain Bouhey / Piano [Improvisé] – Yochk'o Seffer

    3     Largo Et Presto (6:43)

            Alto Saxophone – Alain Bouhey / Piano – Carol Lipkind

Personnel:

Alain Bouhey – alto, tenor, soprano saxophones

Yochk’o Seffer – piano, bass clarinet, woodwind [trabla]

Carol Lipkind – piano (B-1 / B-3)

Avant garde jazz recorded in the 80's by the French sax player Alain Bouhey with Yochk'o Seffer and Carol Lipkind.

Limited private pressing by Alain Bouhey with book, flyer and poster included.

Alain Bouhey is a pedagogist, author of several books on saxophone techniques. He was teacher in Senegal during the 1970s and is teaching saxophone in Rennes and Paris since the 1980s. This vinyl oddity is dedicated to Leopold Sédar Senghor, the poet and Senegal’s president from [1966 to 198?], himself a music lover and organizer of the 1st Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (Black Arts Festival) in Dakar, 1966 (the LP from this festival is itself a strange thing).

On ‘La Voie Scriptorale’, Alain Bouhey’s saxophone playing is highly enjoyable, without the shrieking sounds or violent demonstration from other free jazz horn blowers. Magma’s multi-instrumentalist Yochk’o Seffer shows muscular abilities in his keyboard ostinatos and arpegiatos, but he’s mixed a little behind Bouhey so that the music is allowed to breathe. The A side has 3 delightful duets with written sax parts and piano improvisation, except Techouba, a saxophone+bass clarinet duet. The B-side is a piano+saxophone sonata with Bartok and atonal reminiscences courtesy of Seffer himself, though it is probably partly improvised rather than written down.

The LP comes with a 16-pp LP-sized booklet of writings and technical diagrams by Alain Bouhey.

If you find it, buy this album!