Henri Texier - 1976 - Amir

The debut album from French jazz double bassist Henri Texier, who has worked with Don Cherry, Bud Powell, Donald Byrd, Chet Baker, and Total Issue, and co-founded the Transatlantik Quartet and European Rhythm Machine. Amir is spare and stark, vibrating and volatile with unrealized possibility, slightly sinister and about to burst at the seams. Long stretches of double bass drone, lyricless vocal chants (Texier’s voice sounds an awful lot like a string instrument), and a few brief forays into free-jazz, moments at which the record threatens to break apart. Texier on double bass, viola, oud, flute, percussion, piano, and vocals. Unsettling dinner-eating music.

This is the debut solo release from French, self taught Jazz Double Bassist Henry Texier, who usually performed as a session player for artists such as Don Cherry, Phil Woods and Bud Powell, however, 'Amir' is something totally different from what these names might usually conjure up for us in our imaginations.

From the moment you drop the needle on this record, you can recognize you are hearing something vastly unique and with its own sense of voice and identity.

The simplicity of the combinations here, capturing perfectly Texier's sublime bass playing and the ethereal multi layered vocal intonations which sound as though they were carried on a desert wind to our ears. Sounds that are as old as time. That is what is so endearing about Texier's music. The space and the environment which he is able to create around the listener. Something agrarian and pastoral. Something untamed and yet deeply equanimous.

These minimal arrangements comprise of Texier's vocal incantations, which are wordless, but rather a series of 'da da da di di da da's ' that follow a counter melody to the steady rhythmic pulses of a bounding bass which dances playfully with an ancient sounding Oud and some sparse hand percussion in the form of a shaker or hand clapping. Occasionally accompanied by an Ocarina, which again gives 'Amir' a sense of primitive and ancient earthiness. 

For lack of a better description, 'Amir' is quite a 'spiritual' and almost 'transcendental' listening experience and for it to be labelled simply "jazz" is almost a crime. This is a mix of new age, minimalism, Avant-Guard, Raga and something completely else. Something without precedence. 

Its a surprise that Texier is not more well known considering all the support credits he has acquired over the years ontop of being made a Chevalier of the l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur in 2001, the highest honor the French government accords to its artists. 

Though not easy to find as it was only pressed a couple of times on a small French label, both this and his follow up solo record 'Varech' which is on par with 'Amir', is well worth your time to explore. 

'Amir' is simply stunning.

Post-bop jazz with heavy drone influence - likely drawn from Indian folk (I'm detecting a lot of Qawwali in these recordings). The title track almost reminds me of Iron and Wine's "On Your Wings" in the insistence of the rhythm and vocals, but "Amir" is more sensual and complex, its guitar solo evoking the aforementioned Eastern influences. As a mood-setter it's first-rate stuff.

"Le sage, le singe, et les petits enfants" sets the stage for the rest of the record, building on the tone of the first song for its first 4+ minutes before breaking down into a free jazz freakout that reassembles into a more traditional bop passage to close out the track. "Hommage" is a solo bass improvisation piece that shows Texier experimenting with the textures of his instrument.

"Le piroguier" has an interesting vocal chant and awesome stand-up bass work from Texier, but doesn't really go anywhere. "Homme rouge" sees Texier switch to electric bass to further display his chops, and the results are akin to something Pink Floyd might've put out around the same time (or perhaps an outtake from Starless and Bible Black); however, to my ears the incantations Texier arranges as vocal melodies undercut the dark atmosphere that the instrumental passages build. Ah, well.

"Les korrigans" is the moment on the record when it really hits you that this might just be some hippy-dippy free-improv bullshit, Texier unleashes a bass solo so accomplished you wonder why he bothers making such atmospheric, drone-y music when he's more than capable of holding his own with Don Cherry and the other free jazz fire-breathers of the era. The moment at the end of the solo when the cello comes in beneath it is truly inspired, leading to a coda that combines those hippy-dippy free-improv bullshit elements with the fire of his bass work and makes you realize, "Oh, there was a plan all along."

The album's actual coda, "Quand tout s'arrete," is sort of a reminder that this whole thing was built on the chanting vocals, which is also why this is getting 3.5 stars instead of 4: I can respect a lot of the work here from both a composition and musician-standpoint, but I don't find myself returning to anything other than maybe the first two tracks very often. There's a lot of great ideas here, but I'm not sure if any of it is worth the trouble of tracking down a copy.