All the portraits of Truffaz insist on the experimenter, the all-rounder, his ability to nestle in a symphonic work, behind Indian tablas, or distorted guitars that clash with walls of sound. We’ve understood nothing of his intimate odyssey if we can’t see that music is first and foremost, for him, an unstoppable trigger to fall in love.

As a young man, Truffaz was seen blowing brass with a rap band in Lausanne, Silent Majority, and then doing overnight trips to London to host drum‘n’bass parties. Truffaz realised that his trumpet speaks a new form of Esperanto; it’s capable of building the least expected soundscapes. It’s a planetary visa, a seven-league boot, a master key.

Some thirty years ago, the Erik Truffaz Quartet became one of the best time exploration machines we’ve ever known. They made classics of their time for the Blue Note label, jazz that deals in electronic rhythms, The Dawn, Bending New Corners; they only realised their phenomenal success when, in Marseilles, they found themselves facing a human tide that was hanging around without any real hope in front of the club where the quartet would be playing that evening.

For 30 years, the bird-faced trumpeter has never stopped going against the flow, honing his driving skills on mountain roads, brandishing his trumpet in the face of the giants he comes across. Who can boast such a track record? Truffaz has thrown his rhymes behind the back of composer Pierre Henry, he has haunted Christophe’s endless nights, he has painted Enki Bilal’s drawings with blue notes, he has shared the stage with Jacques Weber, Sandrine Bonnaire, and it seemed on those nights that all the books he had read came back to the surface of his mouthpiece. He has recorded in India on the banks of the Ganges, he has sung with a Malian diva and with the Dandy Warhols, he has given scores to symphony orchestras, he has written extensively for the cinema. It’s as if his instrument has served only one purpose: to extract the emotion buried in everything that passes through him.

Language spoken: French

Photo credit: Vincent Guignet