In the Midwest, during the 90s, a team of researchers joined forces – creating a musical genre often called “post-rock” which, as many had done before, borrowed to jazz some of its ideals. This genre was first tread all the way by John McEntire, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, Dan Bitney and Jeff Parker – a.k.a. Tortoise. These five men used whatever they pleased in the musical sandbox that was their playground: samba, dub, ambient, minimal music, concrete music, industrial music, krautrock, free, etc. Until 2010, when the city of Chicago gave the group the opportunity to celebrate the range of musical expressions born in this environment, with a new suite and several guests from the worlds of jazz and improvisation. For the inauguration of a new network of exchanges between French and American musicians – The Bridge – the festival Sons d’hiver offered Tortoise to reinvent this suite with several French improvisers, among whom the guitar player Julien Desprez. To cross worlds through musical mirrors.

The Bridge is an exchange network between French and American – mostly from Chicago – jazz musicians. Each year, it will allow 4 trans-Atlantic ensembles to form and tour clubs and festivals on both continents. The Bridge also plans to archive concerts and events (interviews, reports, audio and/or video recordings of the concerts, workshops, conferences, etc.) to provide in the long run an irreplaceable archive to jazz and improvised music lovers, members of the music industry, music students, and researchers who work in these fields.

Tortoise & guests – Live Maison des Arts de Créteil – 23/02/2013 from The Bridge on Vimeo.