One sings. The other plays guitar. On the stage of The Zebra in Belleville, accompanied by a percussionist (Alex Tran), the two showcase their first album made together, Set Luna. Julia Sarr and Patrice Larose have both belonged for years to that extended family of backing musicians whose talent is especially highly prized.

Originally from Dakar, the singer has lived in France for twenty-five years, but has never forgotten where she comes from.  She sings her songs in Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal. In addition to the Congolese singer Lokua Kanza, with whom she collaborated for a decade, she has worked with MC Solaar, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Johnny Hallyday, Michel Fugain, Oumou Sangaré, Papa Wemba, Youssou N'Dour, an eclecticism echoing her musical openness (which has embraced Senegalese rhythms, salsa, soul, gospel, and Bollywood).

Born in Normandy, Patrice Larose was bitten by the bugs of jazz and flamenco.  He has participated in arrangements for two albums of the Brazilian singer Marcio Faraco.

Why did Julia Sarr and Patrice Larose meet?  They shared a similar capacity for venturing beyond the usual borders, a disdain for established codes, for stagnant templates, for rectilinear pathways.  When Laurent Bizot, artistic director of the No Format! record label, offered them an opportunity for encounter, they signed on.  Conceived as a niche for unclassifiable artists, a sort of clearinghouse for musical vagabonds whose work “beyond category” has trouble finding a home with record companies governed by the laws of marketing, No Format! advocates exceptional music.

ON A PINK BARITONE GUITAR

This album from Julia Sarr and Patrice Larose is remarkable for its dreamy intimacy, for its strange intelligence.  On stage at The Zebra, the duo presented almost the entire album.  Flamenco guitarist Ricardo Garcia and Senegalese percussionist (talking drummer) and singer Leïty M'Baye, who participated in the album, intervened from time to time.  On Thursday, November 17, Mino Cinelu et Jean-Philippe Rykiel will also join the performance.

"If you ask me how things are, here where I’m living/I won’t lie to you/Money worries and winter are very real (...)/If you leave your land to go conquer another/You might change, and you might lose yourself/You might lose touch with your roots, to the point of doing yourself harm", sings Julia Sarr in Set Luna Djamonodji, a song which can be read as a cautionary tale for candidates for emigration. "It’s a letter addressed to someone who wanted to come to live in France as I’ve done ", explains the singer.  "I tell him that here you can become transparent.  Alone with your suitcase on the subway train platform, it’s possible that no one may see you, no one may speak to you."  Accompanied simply by Patrick Larose’s delicate guitar, in this moment of beguiling sweetness Julia Sarr bowls you over.  On the album, Youssou N'Dour lent his voice to this song.

The duo paid homage to the Senegalese star who had recently invited them to participate in one of his concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York, by adapting, in a Latin-tinged version, No More, a song from his album Eyes Open, released in 1992 on the label of Black American filmmaker Spike Lee.

After a prelude played on a pink baritone guitar lent by the singer Marcio Faraco, the songs paraded.  Nimala, dedicated to her son, Yobuma, about madness, Namala, evoking a remembrance of her homeland, the colors and smells of her childhood, or Yow Laï xar, a song for a love which has not yet arrived.  These are songs, melodies with an undulating architecture, which sometimes lose something of their fluidity on stage.  But the suspended moments, the sensations of emptiness between sung phrases, are more than made up for by the knowing warmth, by the smiles and gracious movements of Julia Sarr, a perfect singer with exemplary timbre and presence.

Patrick Labesse