Laurent de Wilde

Laurent de Wilde (born 19 December 1960) is a French jazz pianist, composer, and writer.

Biography Born in Washington, D.C., United States, Monk has been translated and published in New York, London, Tokyo, Barcelona and Milan.

In 1997, de Wilde released his album in trio-quartet for Columbia. Spoon-a-Rhythm earned him an award at the Victoires de la Musique in 1998 as "jazz artist of the year". His trio toured intensively in Europe, the United States and Japan for over two years. De Wilde decided then to focus on the electronic revolution that radically redefined contemporary jazz. He joined the group of Ernest Ranglin, true founding father of Jamaican reggae and met with different music movers such as Samia, Cosmik Connection or Roudoudou.

The result was an album that claimed for a mutation in jazz: Time for Change was released for Warner Jazz in 2000. The band (Flavio Boltro, Gaël Horellou, Minino Garay, Jules Bikoko and Stéphane Huchard) gave more than a hundred concerts in France and abroad. Enriched by this experience, de Wilde went into studio again. In 2002 he recorded Stories for Warner, released in spring 2003. His new group with DJ Ben on turntables and Julien Charlet on drums toured throughout 2003-2004. During the same period, de Wilde wrote music for children's programs on France 3 TV and has composed scores for several feature films for television on TF1 and France 2.

In fall 2004 de Wilde composed and recorded with his new band, Organics. The album was released by Nocturne. This group featured Gaël Horellou on sax and computer, Philippe Bussonnet on bass and Yoann Serra on drums. That same year, de Wilde pursued his collaborations with André Ceccarelli, Eddie Henderson (Echoes) and Rick Margitza.

In February 2006, de Wilde decided to return to the acoustic trio, and invited Laurent Robin (drums) and Darryl Hall (bass) to take a break from those electronics years. The result is an album rich in rhythms, The Present (Nocturne). The same year, de Wilde met a slam artist whose album had just been out and was looking for a jazz pianist to take the band on the road. Impressed by the quality of the project, de Wilde agreed and it was the beginning of the magnificent ascension of Abd al Malik who would soon be recognized as the new figure of slam. The band toured for two and a half years and has performed in more than 160 major halls around the world.

Between tours, de Wilde took the time to compare the two worlds he lived in for twenty years, and recorded the encounter of an acoustic piano and a computer. As a duet with the participation of Otisto 23, de Wilde produces sounds from his piano (with or without the keyboard) that Otisto records in real time before looping and processing them, building the musical form as it unfolds. The album, released in September 2007 (Nocturne), called PC Pieces, takes the form of a small book in which de Wilde describes the long road leading to this object. Inside the CD, a dual disc offers the music on one side and video on the other: videos synchronized to the music and a filmed concert. In 2010, the project extended into a second volume, entitled FLY! enriched by the experience of touring and playing with this group for two years. The relationship between the computer and the piano is purified, the music is more instinctive, more emotional and more rhythmic. Added to the group is videographer Nico Ticot (XLR Project), a true magician of colours and volumes, matches the music with dreamlike precision.

De Wilde has produced and toured with the Diane Tell Boris Vian Project (Docteur Boris & Mister Vian, Celluloid, 2009) and has produced four volumes of tales from Africa with Souleymane Mbodj editions for Milan. He has also published short stories (Jazz Me Blue, 2009, Au Duc des Lombards, 2010) and participated in the making of a broadcast program for Arte around Thelonious Monk and the book he has written about him.

Discography 1987: Off the Boat 1989: Odd and Blue 1990: Colors of Manhattan 1992: Open Changes 1995: The Back Burner 1997: Spoon-a-Rhythm 2000: Time 4 Change 2003: Stories 2004: Organics 2006: The Present 2007: PC Pieces 2010: Fly 2011: Colors of Manhattan 2011: Organics/The Present 2012: Over the Clouds 2013: Back Burner 2014: Fly Superfly 2016: Riddles: duet with Ray Lema 2017: New Monk Trio 2021: Wheels: duet with Ray Lema

Books Monk, Gallimard, 1997,