Through his aesthetic choices, his musical openness, and his unmistakable playing, saxophonist Emile Parisien has revealed himself since the early 2000s as one of the great current personalities of French jazz. A few years earlier, in 1993, he joined the first class of the Marciac College jazz class, where he met a few personalities who would remain friends throughout his career, such as the singer Leïla Martial, whom he sometimes accompanies as a sideman. We saw him very young on the stage of the festival of Marciac, in particular at the side of Wynton Marsalis. But Emile Parisien also studied music at the conservatory of Toulouse, where he was confronted with the classical and contemporary repertoires. His numerous collaborations and formations have allowed him to explore different facets of jazz. Without rejecting history, Emile Parisien adopts a resolutely modern outlook and claims a jazz of creation.

Émile Parisien meets Guillaume Kosmicki on the occasion of two current projects: Métanuits with Roberto Negro around Gyorgy Ligeti's first quartet, to be recorded and released on May 31, 2023 by Act, and the new album Les égarés with Vincent Segal, Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Peirani, released on March 31, 2023 by NØ FØRMAT.

Selected excerpts:

- Excerpt from Métanuits, Émile Parisien and Vincent Peirani (video of September 19, 2021)

- Excerpt from Métanuits (May 16, 2014 at the Triton, carte blanche to Roberto Negro)

- Sextet Louise - Il Giorno Della Civetta" (ACT Music, 2022)

- Sextet Louise - "Memento pt. 1" (ACT Music, 2022)

- Duet Belle Epoque - Egyptian Fantasy" with Vincent Peirani (Sidney Bechet, ACT Music, 2014)

- Les égarés, " Time Bum " with Ballaké Sissoko, Vincent Segal, Vincent Peirani, Émile Parisien -(NØ FØRMAT, 2023)

Photos © Samuel Kirsznbaum
Photos © Corinne Svala
Photos © Gérard Tissier

Sound portrait of Leila Martial