Falling Grace Romain Pilon

• 1Falling Grace04:52
• 2Textures05:40
• 3Side Car03:48
• 4Lament06:29
• 5Bye Ya06:34
• 6Interlude02:16
• 7Sweet and Lovely04:20
• 8Golden Earrings05:32
• 9By Myself05:00
• 10Horace-Scope04:02
• 11Nicolette05:27
• Total Runtime54:00

Info for Falling Grace

For the first time in a career full of high-level collaborations, French guitarist Romain Pilon has devoted an entire album to jazz standards. Exhuming rare tunes from the Great American Songbook and jazz gems composed by Herbie Hancock, Steve Swallow, Thelonious Monk or Miles Davis, he signs a trio record accompanied by a master of the drums, Jeff Ballard (from The Brad Mehldau Trio): “Falling Grace”.

Playing standards is too often the occasion for numerous musicians to show off their technique or it is a mere exercise de style that doesn’t really go anywhere. This is not the case with Romain Pilon, who waited until he felt he was ready to record an album of standards even if he has been playing them since he became a musician. The guitarist knows that playing these compositions is not a superficial exercise and that there is no reason to interpret them if he can’t find something new to express. To play a well-known standard without making it his own exposes the musician to playing without having anything to say or revealing himself as unable to rise to the heights of the masters who have left their stamp on these tunes which are part of the common heritage of jazz musicians. That is certainly not the case with this album.

"Falling Grace" is one of those rare albums where each note seems in its place, where each phrase unfolds without ever becoming facile. The music evolves serenely, breathes, is heard with balance and elegance, reaching peaks and moments of radiance. Romain Pilon displays both his electric penchants and his lyrical sensitivity, his rhythmic solidness and his unfettered sense of phrasing, assuming the lento of a ballad with superlative class as much as he swings unfailingly. With a sound combining presence and sensitivity, a touch as sure as it is delicate, he has recorded an album that already sounds like a classic on first listening, and whose beauty is not exhausted with repeated listenings.

Romain Pilon, guitar
Yoni Zelnik, double bass
Jeff Ballard, drums

No biography found.

Booklet for Falling Grace