Interview with pianist Pierre de Bethmann. An interview by email in writing.

Dear readers, get to know more about our US/EU Jazz – Blues Festivals and the activities of our US/EU Jazz – Blues Association in the capitals of Europe, we will soon publish program for 2024, enjoy in the July – August – Brussels, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Sofia, new addreses this year, also in Amsterdam, Budapest.

JB: – First, let’s start out with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music. How exactly did your adventure take off? When did you realize that this was a passion you could make a living out of?

Pierre de Bethmann: – I was born and raised in Paris, France. Music was an extremely strong valued artform in my mother’s family: she is a highly trained classical pianist, and both her parents loved music, especially my grandfather, who admired a lot and regularly listened to such masters as Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt and Erroll Garner, to only name a few of his favorites.

My mother got me into taking classical piano lessons from age 5, and I kept the same teacher until my early twenties. So I regularly practiced technical exercises (Hanon and Czerny), Bach (always a prelude or a fugue to be known anytime), and probably an additional more or less constant focus on French composers from late 19th and early 20th centuries (Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc…)

At the same time, I was lucky enough to see my grandparents almost every week, thus getting familiar with the jazz sound my grandfather listened to, which eventually caught me deeply, and I tried to progressively imitate on the piano what I was hearing from records, trying to understand things by myself on this artform I felt like so much attracted by.

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I remember a few additional steps, around age 13 when a schoolmate got me into the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, a little later when my grandmother was advised by a record dealer to offer me Kind of Blue for Christmas, a little later when another high school mate got me into the music of John Coltrane, Miles’ second quintet and Weather Report… I was just amazed and deeply moved by listening and still trying to understand as much as I could by myself.

Then, although I kept on track of a “general education”, as a finally graduated from a management college, I decided to spend one year at Berklee College of Music (Boston – MA) in 1989, to dive into the jazz culture – which I think I really did, catching up on theory and sessioning all around with whoever was down to play. At this time though, I wasn’t sure I would be brave (and skilled) enough to go for a professional career, and as lots of my peers moved to NYC, I finally decided to go back to Paris – also because I had borrowed money for all this, and I had to pay it back one way or another.

So I started a serious “dayjob” as a consultant… while hanging out as much as I could in Parisian clubs at nights – quite an exhausting period of my life, when I also decided to start trio Prysm who progressively got a serious exposure, and finally made me decide to choose music for good at the beginning of 1995.

JB: – How has your sound evolved over time? What have you been doing to find and develop your own sound?

PB: – What a difficult question! I do value the issue of having one’s own sound, but I have the feeling that I first went through a very strong will to first study the masters. It seems to me that the more you do so, the more you get a chance to find your own way.

Then I guess your sound also depends on people you play with. Of course, I can refer to a certain number of solo piano albums, but I have always felt so much attracted by the collective aspect of the music: as a piano player, I still think that the type of rhythm section you team with can have a strong influence on your piano sound.

Finally, over the years, I guess I also try to target my practice routine into a more relaxed approach of technique, trying to take more time to work things down, trying not to “force” virtuosity, and catch the proper time feel on any piece.

JB: – Have you changed through the years? Any charges or overall evolution? And if so why?

PB: – I guess I have – but this again is a deep question, for which I could also relate to my personal life…

I certainly consider myself a jazz musician, if I can dare say so, as this artform has targeted my life so radically for so long… I would have a hard time denying this. But having said so, I am still more or less constantly amazed by the variety of approaches one can have on this both very specific and so diverse music genre.

There are so many ways to play, so many ways to live as a musician. Matching the evolution of your emotions with your capacities, with other musicians skills, with the “zeitgeist”… all this probably requires to more or less permanently balance between self-confidence and flexibility, and some sort of calm in a rude world too.

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JB: – In your opinion, what’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?

PB: – Wow, wouldn’t it be a perfect subject for a thesis? Quite a deep type of problem for sure… Perhaps my little attempt to answer who be based on my feeling that emotion might come from a balance between the explainable and the unexplainable. There are some things we can analyze, by highlighting principles and rules of a specific language; and other things nobody can explain, just pure mystery, or simply bizarre things that strike us.

After all, try to explain why Jimmy Cobb’s stroke on the very first beat of Miles’ legendary So What solo moves us so much… good luck!

JB: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; are you okay with delivering people the emotion they long for?

PB: – It seems to me that expectancies depend on many factors, including short notice circumstances. But as idealistic as it might sound, I really think that the best way to respect an audience is to respect yourself. Not that ego should be the first motto, far from it; but I personally try to work things ahead as much as I can, so that what we play on stage is somehow crafted enough so that we can give the audience the feeling that we are treating people with respect.

Of course, the tricky thing about this music is that it also emphasizes spontaneity, big time – but precisely, it seems to me that this other aspect of delivering a musical message is also based on a lot of individual and collective practice.

I guess there will always be preconceptions about music, about jazz, perhaps about myself amongst people who follow my projects, thus with a more or less permanent risk of misunderstandings between what an audience expects from a concert or an album and what we actually play. But this gap in itself is also interesting, on all levels.

So I might be a little of path regarding possible expectancies, but I think everyone can be sensitive to the will of honesty.

JB: – How can we get young people interested in jazz when most of standard tunes are half a century old?

PB: – I’m tempted to draw on my role as a father here, because one of my deepest joys is to see that my children feel a powerful bond with music, and even more specifically with the great tradition of jazz.

I simply remember the countless moments when we listened to music together, in the evening before or after dinner, in the car, on vacation, singing along together… The standards in question may be over fifty years old, but they’re no less magnificent for that, and it seems to me that they go a long way in comparison with any kind of music, whether it comes before or after them…

But I’ve never wanted to impose too exclusive a vision. And of course I also remember countless moments when kids didn’t want to hear about “parents’ music”, and rather hear their thing, do their thing, wherever it would lead them to…

But the subject easily gets back to my answer to your previous question about the audience: if they feel we deeply love something to the point we really get emotional about it, without makeup so to say, I do think it totally changes the issue about sharing and transmitting.

JB: – John Coltrane once said that music was his spirit. How do you perceive the spirit and the meaning of life?

PB: – I wouldn’t dare adding anything to any quote from John Coltrane…

Perhaps I can just mention the fact that my family is definitely rooted in a Christian tradition, and I feel an eternal bond with this spiritual family, in which music has an obvious importance. For me, life is something other than the setting in motion of a materiality; put another way, it’s still full of mysteries, and it seems to me that music is a language that grafts itself on beyond articulated language, at the very point where words no longer suffice.

Ironically, we also talk a lot about music, I mean… with words – which is what you’ve got me doing at the moment! I guess human nature also likes paradox…

JB: – If you could change one single thing in the musical world and that would become reality, what would that be?

PB: – Perhaps teach to tap on 2 and 4 in kindergarten?…

JB: – Whom do you find yourself listening to these days?

PB: – I’m afraid I’m gonna talk about piano players: Micah Thomas’ latest trio album blew me away, as did Sullivan Fortner’s solo games… Bojan Z, Baptiste Trotignon and Eric Legnini also impressed me a lot.

And I know I also have to get back to Brad Mehldau’s, Kevin Hays’ or Ethan Iverson’s recent work – there are so inspiring…

In a totally different field, as I try to also pay attention to some aspects of contemporary music from time to time, I was very touched by Marc-André Dalbavie’s Flute Concerto played in Radio France in 2018, which I discovered only recently.

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JB: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine: where and why would you really want to go?

PB: – Perhaps Nikolaikirche, Leipzig, April 7, 1724, premiere of Bach’s St John Passion…

If I can go for a second choice, I guess Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio, New York City, March 2, 1959, first recording session of Kind of Blue.

JB: – Do You like our questions? So far, it’s been me asking you questions, now may I have a question from yourself…

PB: – I sure do! Very challenging for me… When do we meet in real life?

JB: – Never!

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Interview by Elléa Beauchêne