Elegant People Biréli Lagrène 2026 CD PW1021

1. Elegant People   4:29
2. Flair - around Giant Steps   5:51
3. Kings Cross   6:23
4. A Time for Love   4:52
5. My Foolish Heart   5:23
6. Anjo de Mim   8:13
7. Hopla   3:17
8. New Blues   4:11
9. W 48th street   6:09
10. Clair   9:43

After more than forty years in a career that began at a tender age, Biréli Lagrène has already made his mark on jazz history. His contribution to reinventing the use of the guitar has been praised by his most prestigious contempo- raries: John Scofield, Mike Stern, Lionel Loueke, and even George Benson have each expressed their admiration for this prodigious musician.

Elegant People follows on from his remarkable previous album Solo Suites. It reveals a Biréli Lagrène in search of the essential. With his instrumental mastery greater than ever, he seems to have definitively shed all unnecessary acroba- tics. His fundamentally spontaneous expression is guided here by a very clear vision of the path to follow throughout the album. Elegant People was meticulously prepared with selected pieces and compositions that offer his new quartet contrasting playing fields, conducive to the emergence of a true group sound. We find Biréli’s attachment to the world of Weather Report (Elegant People), to the standards of the Great American Song Book (My Foolish Heart, A Time for Love, Clair) and his unique way of capturing other melodies drawn from his immense musical memory (Anjo de Mim). A constant thread running through all his work, the blues continues to be the main foundation of all these variations.

In search of a clear and direct sound, Biréli Lagrène chooses here an almost acoustic instrumentation that highlights his brilliant partners without artifice.Only in rare moments does he allow himself to enrich the sound of his semi-acoustic electric guitar with a few well-integrated saturations and delays. Far removed from the jazz rock aesthetic that was once one of his trademarks, he manages to breathe new life into a repertoire that might otherwise seem somewhat tired, drawing closer to the jazz fundamentals of his illustrious predecessors (Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Pat Martino).

At the beginning of the album, Elegant People, Flair, and Kings Cross are played instinctively, with the fiery energy of a virtuoso band rising to the challenge. With his unique art of rupture and reversal, Biréli Lagrène then takes us on a long, more intimate journey with A Time for Love, My Foolish Heart, and Hopla, pure gems of fragile sweetness and freedom. Anjo de Mim reveals the quartet’s great skill in creating a mood reminiscent of the serene and myste- rious atmospheres of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (Still Life Talking period). Jean-Yves Jung finds fertile ground here for his lyricism to flourish in a magnificent and very long solo.

New Blues is a return to the “fundamentals.” Led with great mastery by the earthy Raphaël Pannier and William Brunard, this original and rudimentary blues is a dazzling example of what Biréli Lagrène can bring to a vocabulary that has already been heard a thousand times. In W 48th Street, the guitarist continues in the same vein and style as “One Take” (recorded as a trio with Larry Grenadier and Mino Cinelu on the album “Story Teller”).

A simple, modulated harmonic sequence, repeated a hundred times, serves as a launch pad for the never-preme- ditated improvisations of a musical genius, literally pierced by the music that comes almost in spite of himself.

Meticulously and simply constructed, with great enthusiasm, Elegant People is an album that demonstrates the fresh- ness and incredible capacity for renewal of a musician who is extremely sought after and experienced in all musical genres, having worked alongside some of the greatest artists.

Produced, recorded and mixed by Vincent Mahey
Executive production: Virginie Crouail

Recorded on October 6-7-8, 2025 at Studio Sextan A
Assistants: Tristan Barège and Valentin Moricet
Mixed at Studio Sextan C in November 2025
Mastering: Raphaël Jonin J RAPH i.n.g

Graphic design: Atelier Bagarit
Photos: Jean-Baptiste Millot
Videos: Igor Juget
Liner notes: Jean Rochard
English translation: Pamela Hargreaves