G.L.I.

Groupement de Libres Improvisateurs

(Free Improvisers group)
All began when I met the guitarist Serge Pesce who lived like me in the Nice area. We had very different musical background and though we've heard about each other, our paths never crossed.

We met after a concert he performed which I liked a lot. Later, he came to see me with Philharmonie and we met several times after this. Naturally we mentionned the possibility to work together.

We were both improvisers, but in a different way. Since the begining of my musical life with Shylock, free improvisation had been the source of my music, but it never an end in itself. On the other hand, Serge had developped the concept of "adapted guitar", ie enriched with acoustic effects with the help of odd objects : chisel, spoon, bow, thimbles and so on ... that he used to compose as well as to improvise.

So we decided to perform a run of seven concerts, the first one being our very first musical encounter, without any rehearsal. We even made sound check separately.

At the end of these series we intended to carry on this principle of concerts gathering people of different musical style who never played together, but involving musicians of the whole area. That is why we created the G.L.I. which served as basis for three series of ten concerts gathering styles as various as jazz, rock, traditional, electronic, classical and contemporary music. "Les Aventures de..." (The Adventures of...) took place from 2000 to 2002 at Le Bar des Oiseaux in Nice.
The subject of the G.L.I. is free improvisation, it means an immediate music freed from habits, cliches, and reflexes usually proper to most musicians ; the style must disappear. During these workshops, we emphasize listening, spontaneity and renewal of musical vocabulary of participants. In the series "Les Aventures de...", I had noticed that musicians, even the more experienced in improvisation (maybe even more them!) had a tendency to confine in personal modes of playing which were in most cases more refuges than an advance in unknown territory.
After this experiment, Serge and I decided to create a workshop in which would be enhanced a method of teaching improvisation. Actually, it is very difficult, maybe even more for a crafted musician, to free from habits of playing which of course allow a certain confidence on stage, but often check personal evolution.
So we worked out, with Serge and Henri Roger, jazz pianist and excellent improviser on means to develop listenning, language and responsability of each musician involved in a collective improvisation. This workshop have been taking place at the Diables Bleu team in Nice since october 2002. After few months, Serge Pesce felt less concerned by the direction of the G.L.I. and prefered withdraw. Since this time, while continuing teaching workshops, the G.L.I. has been regrouping as a circle of six persons going deeply into research on tones, spontaneous expression and space in improvisation.