Serge Adam-Big band quoi de neuf docteur-en attendant la pluie

	jazzman janvier 1997		le monde 8 mars 1997
What’s Up Doc? *** 51° Below 1 CD Doc 033 - Distributed by Night & Day Serge Adam is a lot more than one of our best « post-bop » trumpet players. He’s one of the consolidators of the vast French scene. With him and his big band, there’s a family, a musical idea and a collective sense of adventure. If since « The Come Back » and « Waiting for Rain » some names have changed (ciao Claude Egea, Daniel Casimir, Xavier Desandre and Benoît Delbecq, but welcome to the pianist Pierre de Bethmann, the percussionist François Verly and the trumpet player to watch for, Nicolas Folmer), the spirit remains the same: that of a Mingus-like workshop, like the ones held by Jack Walrath, where each one speaks up even if it’s the leader that signs his name on all the compositions: seventeen pieces sectioned into four suites. The soloists work toward the sound of the ensemble. Their interventions are only there to put an accent on a certain tropical color, a point on a pointillist canvas, an impressionistic touch, an overflow of expressionistic energy. And the sound is in tune, a pertinent balance between the genre’s traditions and a sense of innovation with just a touch of humor and energy, the need and will to communicate in order to bring back attention and hold back the clichés. The will to play replies to the will to listen. Jacques Denis	What’s Up Doc? 51° Below Serge Adam (direction) With three francs and six pennies - don’t forget the six pennies, the trumpet player Serge Adam has a part of his music played for and by his big band Quoi de Neuf Docteur (What’s Up Doc?). Excellent sections doubled by excellent soloists, these musicians could play the regular repertoire; excellence sometimes serves that. Instead, we can hear that this adventuresome orchestra (musically speaking) prefers to be eclectic. Not to show off. The repertoire, four themes, reaches all the different possibilities of the band. It starts out thundering without ramming us head on with Jungle Hurricane, a variation on a theme by Herbie Hancock (Eye of the Hurricane), as in previous reflections on Wynton Marsalis, Thelonious Monk or Charlie Mingus. Web and its oriental delicacy shows more of an assembly of little orchestral groups that come together in a mass of sound (remembrances of Inside Out). 51° Below follows in a classical manner - exposition, intervention of the soloists (the excellent Charles Schneider, Geoffroy de Masure, Claus Stötter, then Philippe Sellam, Denis Leloup...), the follow up of the band. Kilomètre 134, which had already been scheduled on two different recordings, combines all of that, with its Sun Ra style ritornello and its hints at Gill Evans. The rhythm section is not lagging behind (Hubert Dupont, bass, Verly, percussion, Henocq, drums, de Bethmann, piano). A real treat. Sylvain Siclier
improjazz 31/01/1997	Voix du nord 18 janvier 1997
51° below DOC 033 For « 51° Below », the sound is a lot stronger (also live, but in a studio), and the opening tune from Herbie Hancock « Jungle Hurricane » makes a dynamite entry; one must also note that the percussionist is François Verly and the drummer is Benjamin Henocq and that the group is still hyped up from a tour that brought them to places such as Groeningen (by the way, hello to Marcel and Kees, the two friends and festival organizers in this beautiful town in the Netherlands). As much as the sound in the Dunois is real, therefore limited, the sound in the « PeeWee » studio is efficient. « Web » measures up where respectively François Thuillier, François Verly, Philippe Botta (flute) and Pierre de Bethmann (p) intervene in a Cerry-like free style. The humor that appears in the tunes (« Kilomètre 134 ») transpires in the music, recounting an adventuresome experience. Serge Adam directs one of the strongest big bands in Europe at the moment, which has nothing to do with the sterile masquerades the government handles, and we must give him the means to follow through with his experiments. Philippe RENAUD	This is in fact a strange big band who, from time to time, assemble under the name of « What’s Up Doc? », to collect their individual experience. This time Serge Adam, one of our best post-bop trumpet players, but also a great consolidator of the French jazz scene and corner stone of the band signs his name on all of the compositions : seventeen pieces grouped into four suites, during which the soloists experiment with their individuality without a complex and without disgrace. Each intervention serves as a punctuation mark in a vast movement of the ensemble. It all marches to the same tune : cohesive without fault that maintains the fragile balance between tradition and the will to innovate; abounding in energy and the will to play that is perceptible to the ear. B.de W.

jazzman janvier 1997

le monde 8 mars 1997

What’s Up Doc? *** 51° Below 1 CD Doc 033 - Distributed by Night & Day

Serge Adam is a lot more than one of our best « post-bop » trumpet players. He’s one of the consolidators of the vast French scene. With him and his big band, there’s a family, a musical idea and a collective sense of adventure. If since « The Come Back » and « Waiting for Rain » some names have changed (ciao Claude Egea, Daniel Casimir, Xavier Desandre and Benoît Delbecq, but welcome to the pianist Pierre de Bethmann, the percussionist François Verly and the trumpet player to watch for, Nicolas Folmer), the spirit remains the same: that of a Mingus-like workshop, like the ones held by Jack Walrath, where each one speaks up even if it’s the leader that signs his name on all the compositions: seventeen pieces sectioned into four suites. The soloists work toward the sound of the ensemble. Their interventions are only there to put an accent on a certain tropical color, a point on a pointillist canvas, an impressionistic touch, an overflow of expressionistic energy. And the sound is in tune, a pertinent balance between the genre’s traditions and a sense of innovation with just a touch of humor and energy, the need and will to communicate in order to bring back attention and hold back the clichés. The will to play replies to the will to listen.
Jacques Denis

What’s Up Doc? 51° Below Serge Adam (direction) With three francs and six pennies - don’t forget the six pennies, the trumpet player Serge Adam has a part of his music played for and by his big band Quoi de Neuf Docteur (What’s Up Doc?). Excellent sections doubled by excellent soloists, these musicians could play the regular repertoire; excellence sometimes serves that. Instead, we can hear that this adventuresome orchestra (musically speaking) prefers to be eclectic. Not to show off. The repertoire, four themes, reaches all the different possibilities of the band. It starts out thundering without ramming us head on with Jungle Hurricane, a variation on a theme by Herbie Hancock (Eye of the Hurricane), as in previous reflections on Wynton Marsalis, Thelonious Monk or Charlie Mingus. Web and its oriental delicacy shows more of an assembly of little orchestral groups that come together in a mass of sound (remembrances of Inside Out). 51° Below follows in a classical manner - exposition, intervention of the soloists (the excellent Charles Schneider, Geoffroy de Masure, Claus Stötter, then Philippe Sellam, Denis Leloup...), the follow up of the band. Kilomètre 134, which had already been scheduled on two different recordings, combines all of that, with its Sun Ra style ritornello and its hints at Gill Evans. The rhythm section is not lagging behind (Hubert Dupont, bass, Verly, percussion, Henocq, drums, de Bethmann, piano). A real treat.
Sylvain Siclier

improjazz 31/01/1997

Voix du nord 18 janvier 1997

51° below DOC 033

For « 51° Below », the sound is a lot stronger (also live, but in a studio), and the opening tune from Herbie Hancock « Jungle Hurricane » makes a dynamite entry; one must also note that the percussionist is François Verly and the drummer is Benjamin Henocq and that the group is still hyped up from a tour that brought them to places such as Groeningen (by the way, hello to Marcel and Kees, the two friends and festival organizers in this beautiful town in the Netherlands). As much as the sound in the Dunois is real, therefore limited, the sound in the « PeeWee » studio is efficient. « Web » measures up where respectively François Thuillier, François Verly, Philippe Botta (flute) and Pierre de Bethmann (p) intervene in a Cerry-like free style. The humor that appears in the tunes (« Kilomètre 134 ») transpires in the music, recounting an adventuresome experience. Serge Adam directs one of the strongest big bands in Europe at the moment, which has nothing to do with the sterile masquerades the government handles, and we must give him the means to follow through with his experiments.
Philippe RENAUD

This is in fact a strange big band who, from time to time, assemble under the name of « What’s Up Doc? », to collect their individual experience. This time Serge Adam, one of our best post-bop trumpet players, but also a great consolidator of the French jazz scene and corner stone of the band signs his name on all of the compositions : seventeen pieces grouped into four suites, during which the soloists experiment with their individuality without a complex and without disgrace. Each intervention serves as a punctuation mark in a vast movement of the ensemble. It all marches to the same tune : cohesive without fault that maintains the fragile balance between tradition and the will to innovate; abounding in energy and the will to play that is perceptible to the ear.
B.de W.

Jazz magazine mars 1997

NRC Handelsblad 1996

Two different approaches here. One from a mass effort: Jungle Hurricane - a variation from Hancock’s Eye of the Hurricane - is a perfect example of blocks of sound treated with a festive spirit and with a marked rhythmic base. 51° Below is, in the same sense, a sound structure to support the soloists. With this, the style of the ensemble is weighted but never heavy. On the other side, a more flighty character is developed: Web branches out with Indian flavors to evolve on a moving fresco; the mixture of timbres is subtle in Kilomètre 134 (muted flutes and trumpets). Serge Adam’s orchestra here is quite bicephalous.
Xavier Devarat

To give soloists the exposure they deserve and not cover them up: that is what seems to be the philosophy of the leader Serge Adam for the rest of his repertoire. Himself a trumpet player, he prefers to limit himself to conducting, that he does with subtlety and without exaggerating. The German trumpet player Claus Stötter makes a splendid light and colorful contribution in « 51° Below », a composition in two parts that reminds us of the late Gil Evans. And the trumpet of his colleague Nicolas Folmer is exquisite in a Herbie Hancock piece reworked by Adam. The percussionist François Verly, the trombone player Denis Leloup and the tuba player François Thuillier also play with strength and personality. It’s a solid band, without sparkle and spangle. French jazz isn’t limited to Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.
Frans van Leeuwen