You know the jazz guitarist George Benson, but do you know the Garcia family?
La chope des Puces in Paris, does that ring a bell?
A mythical place of gypsy jazz…
When my friend Ninine Garcia hosted the jam there, I spent a lot of time there…
(Here is a little video to prove it! Nice memory of a jam with Ninine and Rocky Gresset…)
I made my first attempts at “scat” (voice improvisation) there…
I was not feeling too comfortable about it, but Ninine already looked convinced.
So he naturally invited me to share the stage with him during his concerts at festivals!
I discovered his family, ate the barbecue in front of his caravan… (mmh the good smell of grilled meat…)
But above all, the omnipresence of guitars…
Ninine is truly “a golden guy”, with limitless kindness and generosity.
If I’m talking to you about Ninine Garcia, it’s because I owe him a lot.
On stage, he always rolled out a red carpet for me so that I could express myself musically in front of his own audience…
Sometimes even to the detriment of his own musical inventions…
He was the one who encouraged me to sing.
One day ?
I tried the impossible…
Improvise simultaneously on the violin and the voice!
And Ninine, totally seduced by the technique, asked me again and again.
It is for this reason that for years, Ninine, his family and his manager Hania have nicknamed me “The GEORGE BENSON of the violin“.
On my new album “Souffle” where I mix jazz and my roots as a classical musician, the voice holds a very important place, almost equal to the violin.
And I know that Ninine Garcia has something to do with it, even if the music on the album is not gypsy jazz…
THANK YOU NININE!
And here is one of my best memories with Ninine… with Didier Lockwood… in Stéphane Grappelli’s apartment:
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