If Paris is a world capital of jazz, the Petit Journal Montparnasse is not for nothing. He has seen the world's greatest musicians appear on his stage. In 2013, the club acquired a resident orchestra; a nonet composed of the young guard of Parisian jazzmen, the Petit Journal Montparnasse Orchestra or PJMO.
It is in this legendary club that these young musicians make their arms during 3 years, to the rhythm of a concert per month. And since they were not afraid of challenges, they set about arranging, writing and playing a different repertoire every time.
The orchestra is composed of all the best jazz musicians of Paris, in a formula in nonet which leaves room for orchestral arrangements where the nine seem to sound like one man, as well as for fevered solos where the musicians always push their limits. By going to a PJMO concert, we realize that a good jazz musician becomes even more so when he plays with the best.
We have seen such talented musicians as Orlando Maraca Valle, Orlando Poleo, Claude Egea, Julien Lourau, Gilles Naturel, Marc Berthoumieux, Allen Hoist, Dominique Magloire, Sylvain Gontard, Antoine Banville and Nicolas Gardel ... thanks to the strength of the leader of the orchestra, Matthieu Allemandou, and the arrangers Mathieu Debordes and Nicolas Bruche, that at the time of the assessment there are more than 150 pieces arranged especially for the band. Tributes to West Coast jazz, Clifford Brown, Jazz Messengers, Latin jazz, Cannonball Adderley bebop, Ella Fitzgerald, Christmas music, French chanson, cinema ...
Their strength is in the talent of a sincere youth, in the joy, the lightning and the pleasure of playing those who have shared the stage for 3 years. With them we laugh, we cry, we shiver, we are sick, we convulse, we fall in love with others, we discover and we learn.
Today, the Petit Journal Montparnasse has closed its doors but the PJMO continues to dispense the spirit of the club wherever it goes. This is a great piece of history that these young men take you to discover, with the idea that jazz is listening, but before all it is eaten, it is drunk and it transpires!
(Please excuse this translation. All the French I know outside of the names of wine comes with digital help.)
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