Manu Katché

Manu Katché studied at the Conservatory, but his musical origins lie in rock. This extraordinary drummer has listened to a lot of jazz, but his career is not focused on this style. Things get complicated when you listen to his tenth album, The ScOpe, in which he delves into the roots of groove music while incorporating modern machine sounds. The cover of the abum, designed by Arno Lam, portrays a side view of Katché: “an African  profile”, he says, and indeed Africa is the underlying theme of the whole album.

The drums are then naturally at the centre of The ScOpe, an electro album with both a carnal and a celestial touch, a sort of frenetic spasm lingering on with pleasure and revival. The album comes to complete, rather than strictly break with, his past discography, that of an expert musician who has been solicited by Sting, Peter Gabriel & Véronique Sanson among others. “I have built the tracks around the drums, and it is no wonder I’ve always played that instrument – my dad’s from the Ivory Coast. I wanted to see people move, dance and sing the gimmicks when they listened to it.”

Katchè’s work as a composer and conductor is an integral part of his career. His music is distinguished by his sense of precise, melodic & catchy themes, its unique fluidity and deep sense of atmosphere. It is testament to Manu Katché’s genius that both these sides of his musical personality – the outstanding drummer and sound-magician, and the composer and bandleader – complement each other so perfectly.

In 2017/2018, he explored the formula of the quartet with a long-time French companion on bass: Jérôme Regard (who, like Manu, knows how to adapt himself to all contexts…): jazz, pop, rock… and who has played with Michel Legrand, Jan Garbarek, Louis Winsberg…), the guitarist Patrick Manouguian, who accompanies both big names in jazz (Dee Dee Bridgewater, Minino Garay, Didier Lockwood…) as well as well-known French variety singers (Bernard Lavilliers, Florent Pagny…) and pianist Elvin Galland.