| World Jazz |
European jazz has always occupied a peculiar liminal space, a frontier where cultures touch, blend, and occasionally clash in ways that feel both unexpected and necessary. Over the past two decades, this strand of jazz has increasingly embraced the porousness of its borders, absorbing elements of classical composition, world traditions, and contemporary improvisation. It is a music shaped as much by long histories as by sudden encounters. Into this evolving landscape arrives Otsukaresama, the new album by French saxophonist and composer Grégory Sallet and his Sur Écoute Quartet, a work that feels at once intimate, transnational, and deeply human.
The record’s title comes from the Japanese word otsukaresama, a phrase rich in cultural nuance. Spoken at the end of a long day, it conveys gratitude for effort shared, a recognition of collective endeavor. The choice is not accidental. This album, which grew out of twenty years of friendship and artistic partnership within the quartet, is itself an act of gratitude: gratitude for perseverance, for conversation, for the way music binds people across countries, aesthetics, and influences. It is, in many ways, a portrait of four musicians who have learned not only to listen to one another but to grow together.
Sallet, who has been blazing a singular path through the European jazz scene since the early 2000s, has long resisted easy categorization. His compositions draw on jazz but refuse to remain confined within its traditions; they absorb contemporary classical language, global rhythmic structures, and a distinctly personal lyricism that has become his signature. If Otsukaresama showcases anything, it is this ability to carve out a musical world that feels uncompromisingly his own.
That world is further shaped by two remarkable guests: Prabhu Edouard, one of the finest Indian percussionists working in Europe today, and Yuriko Kimura, a Japanese flutist whose playing is defined by a rare clarity and grace. Their presence is not ornamental but foundational. Edouard’s tablas introduce new architectural possibilities, bending time and altering the gravitational pull of each piece. Kimura’s flute adds a luminous, almost aerial dimension, a reminder of how breath itself becomes narrative in the right hands.
The album opens with its title track, Otsukaresama, built around a quietly insistent piano ostinato. The saxophone enters with a melodic line that carries a delicate nostalgia, while contemporary harmonies expand and contract beneath it. From the outset, the quartet signals its intention: this is music that breathes, that takes its time, that invites reflection without sliding into sentimentality.
Then comes Instinct 4, which detonates with raw, unfiltered energy. Here, drummer Kevin Lucchetti and Prabhu Edouard engage in an improvised dialogue, a percussive conversation that feels as spontaneous as it is precise. The exchange pushes the piece into near-combustion before resolving back into the calm, radiant air from which it emerged. It is a moment that illustrates one of the album’s central themes: the coexistence of fire and stillness.
But it is on Jugalbandi that the cross-cultural dimensions of this project reach their most exhilarating form. The term refers to a traditional Indian musical dialogue, and Sallet and Edouard approach it with both reverence and daring. Their interaction becomes something more than duet, it is an intercultural negotiation, a shared language forged in real time. Edouard, as he has done on other projects, pulls the musicians irresistibly into his orbit; yet Sallet responds with equal force, shaping a conversation that feels both ancient and utterly contemporary. It is one of the record’s most spellbinding moments.
Throughout the album, classical influences surface not as ornament but as structural DNA. Harmonies echo the language of contemporary European music: angular yet lyrical, precise yet emotive. These elements deepen the album’s poetic sensibility, turning each track into something akin to a small chamber piece, albeit one animated by improvisation and rhythmic flexibility.
Sallet articulates his vision plainly: “This record will be a reflection of what I cherish in music: color, rhythm, listening, interplay, empathy, and surprises.”
The album delivers precisely that. What lingers most after several listens is not merely the technical brilliance, though there is plenty of that, but the warmth, respect, and curiosity that permeate every track. These musicians do not simply coexist; they uplift one another.
Is it jazz? Is it world jazz? A form of contemporary chamber music? The album refuses to choose, and that refusal becomes one of its strengths. Like all meaningful journeys, Otsukaresama shifts with each encounter. On first listen, one might be struck by its radiant interplay; on the second, by its emotional architecture; on the third, by the landscapes it evokes, landscapes that may remind seasoned travelers of the strange peace found in places where the unfamiliar begins to feel like home.
Ultimately, this is an album about connection: across continents, across traditions, across the fragile terrain of human experience. It carries the quiet wisdom of those who have spent years navigating borders, both literal and artistic. And like the word that gives it its name, Otsukaresama is a gesture of acknowledgment, a bow of gratitude for the collective labor of making something beautiful out of the world’s many differences.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, November 27th 2025
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Musicians :
Grégory Sallet – saxophones, compositions
Matthieu Roffé – piano, composition
Kevin Lucchetti – batterie, composition
Michel Molines – contrebasse
Invités : Yuriko Kimura – flûtes (Japon) ; Prabhu Edouard – tablas, udu, voix (Inde)
Enregistré les 28–30 mai 2025 au Crescent, Mâcon, par Frédéric Lézard
Mixage et mastering : Steven Criado
Graphisme : Svhen
Photographies : Ignacio Grez
Visuel : Harry Kazan
Distribution : InOuïe Distribution
Label : La Voie de la Musique créative
Concerts in France :
28 novembre — Chambéry/ Savoie – Jazz Club de Savoie
29 novembre — Mâcon – Concert de sortie d’album – Crescent Jazz Club
Invités: Prabhu Edouard & Yuriko Kimura
30 novembre — Roanne (salle à préciser)
19 décembre — Paris – Pelé Mele Café