De son vrai nom Jean-Pierre Smadja, Smadj, français d'origine tunisienne, joue du oud en mariant jazz, groove électronique et mélodies arabo-andalouses. Actif et talentueux, il a joué avec des musiciens comme Magic Malik ou Stefano di Battista, a créé un groupe en duo avec le oudiste algérien Mehdi Haddab, "DuOud", et a participé à la production de nombreux disques.
Discographie
Equilibriste Melt2000 1999
New Deal Electric Melt 2000
Tunisian by birth, and raised in Paris from an early age, Jean-Pierre Smadja (Smadj) was brought up on a healthy musical diet comprised of a vast spectrum of sounds including Oriental and Brazilian music, Jazz, Funk and Soul. In his teenage years he became inspired by the folk-style singing of Cat Stevens, and later started to develop his own jazz style after becoming inspired by a friend’s demonstration of this technique of playing guitar.
Smadj has had a varied musical career. Aged fifteen he started studying guitar at a jazz school in Paris, and after five years of this began to play with friends in Jazz clubs in and around the city. Simultaneously he became a professional sound engineer, setting up a mobile studio and working with a variety of famous musicians. He continued playing standard and free jazz for several years before the influence of the expanding dance culture entered his world, enticing him with the sounds of breakbeat. Feeling somewhat constrained within the musical pocket he had chosen, he decided to experiment with sounds and styles. "I wanted more. I saw something else was happening in music at that time."
So in 1994 he begun to fuse Jazz with the North African sound of his birthplace, as well as incorporating Oriental, Latin music, and groove into the mix. This culminated in the popular ‘Tatoom’; a jazzy-world-groove sound which he gigged around Paris. The original group was instrumental but they soon introduced a singer into this innovative band, taking on a more pop-based approach to music making.
It was only a matter of time before a small French Record label, Moby Dick, noticed his eclectic musical style and in May 1996 he released an album "Tatoom Presents Tatoom" featuring 8 musicians. The group split up shortly afterwards due to the singer leaving - "we lost our energy", he explains. But Smadj sees the experience as a positive one which gave him the opportunity to work with a large band of musicians and, more importantly, to play his own compositions. It was during this period that he collaborated with an American singer, Jane X, composing and playing an entire afro-folk-blues repertoire. They played together in clubs, but unfortunately nobody in France wanted to produce their work, partly due to the fact that it was sung in English. He continued however to express his musical creativity playing session-guitar, often with a variety of singers and groups such as Faudel (infamous in France), Busy, or Tony Allen (Fela's drummer) while continuing to compose and record songs for himself.
Then during 1997, entranced with electronic music, primarily jungle and breakbeat, he became involved in drum’n’bass jam sessions in a small Parisian club called Le Cithea. It was during this time that he met Sofi Hellborg, a Swedish saxophonist who had experience of playing with many African artists such as Afro-Jazz Saxophonist Manu Dibango. Together they set about fusing Jungle with Jazz. Whilst the DJ’s played their white labels he and Sofi would start improvising live on top. Excited by this fusion he started sampling beats eventually programming them himself, whilst surfing this bassline with live performances of guitar and oud. They subsequently released their first E.P 'Bon Voyage' in October '97 with the small label Freerange U.K. This was a mixture of acoustic music, improvisation, and Smadj’s programming expertise.
Smadj played gigs throughout the summer of '97 in Paris. His band, the 'Funky Family from Paris' met the Selector posse for a memorable experimental jungle- jazz- jam experimentation, expanding the sonic envelope further within a vibrant musical laboratory. During '98 Smadj composed ten new tracks - inviting the best jazz musicians to play on each track, including Stephano Di Battista, Laurent Robin, F. Thullier, Malik, C. Atef, R Amblard and of course, Sofi Hellborg. The singles 'Etrange', featuring Magic Malik on flute and 'Encore' featuring Stephano di Battiste on saxophone were released in June '98 on the small French label Comet.
Smadj then met and impressed Robert Trunz, owner of MELT2000, with this exotic musical melange. Robert signed him and they released 'Equilibriste'(BW2126), which features the above artists and tracks. Meaning tight rope walker in French, this title reflects his musical interests and attempt to balance the equally powerful sounds of world jazz with jungle. Of this album,he says, "It's a really fine mix between acoustic and electronic. " In fact, he claims that many people couldn't tell the difference. Not only that but the sounds stretch the boundaries of world music to its full extent, bridging many boundaries and echoing the cultural diversity that he has experienced in his life. He performed thirty gigs in 99 in England and France to promote this album.
'New Deal'(ELM8027) is his recently released, impossibly brilliant second album. Reaching No.4 in the European World Music Charts, 'New Deal' features an Indian violinist playing over a hard Moroccan gnawa rhythm with sirens recorded on the streets of New York. He blends soul-jazz into the Arabic world with a fusion of vocals from Togo in West Africa whilst representing other countries such as Mali, Algeria, India, Turkey, France, Togo, USA, Afghanistan, Italy, Sweden and Cameroon. Both releases feature his Jazz and North African oud playing, exquisitely encircling the breakbeats and electronic music of the contemporary dance culture. Whilst a lot of today’s drum’n’bass is musicians playing on top of DJ’s, Smadj is unique in the fact that he creates the entire sound, the basslines and the acoustic analogue music that enlivens the driving force of the sonic beats. Defining his sound as a breakthrough of electronic jazz and oriental- a move towards jazz/funk in Paris- he says, " I think it's really new. Not a lot of people do Jungle stuff, mixed with Jazz - live with a drummer."
A veritable global mixer, Smadj's acoustic expertise on guitar and oud alongside his professional talents as a programmer make him the perfect person to relate jazz to the rhythmic energy of drum’n’bass. His unique approach to music has been appreciated throughout Europe, as Smadj continues to play at live gigs with Sofi and other musician friends. He has been touring New Deal in Britain and France since September 2000.
Renowned for his ability to concoct new sound and expand musical horizons, Smadj has been busy in the studio producing vinyls for an artist called Artkonik (on Comet), one of which was released early this year, and the other in September 2000. He has also produced two tracks with a young Reunion Island group called Zong and will most probably do their forthcoming album. He has remixed for Ekova (Sony), and played live with them over a period of six months last year. A multitalented artist in great demand he is also playing oud and guitar with a rap group - Intik (Sony). “A virtuoso in crafts both ancient and modern” Smadj is forging new and inspiring directions for both world music and dance styles. Personifying unique experimental sound, Smadj must be heard to be believed.
