In this music as therapy series, we’re going to highlight some women composers and performers. Because they’ve been neglected in the past. Classics and guys will be here too, but ladies first.
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Camille Bertault is an extraordinary young French composer of contemporary jazz. Here is one of her latest songs she did in collaboration with Jacky Terrason, an excellent and seasoned French jazz artist with American roots (his dad from New Orleans). The poetry and composition is entirely hers. It’s titled “Do You Follow Me?” which is a double entendre, ‘are you a fan?’, and ‘do you get me?’ The poetry is full of multiple meanings as well in the original French, along with a rhyme scheme which starts in couplets but gets more complex, entirely subordinated to the music. The phrases turn very quickly with Gallic wit and virtuosic vocalizations; the French poetry is subtle and brilliant, the whole thing a work of genius.
The English translation which follows merely gives the direct meanings, doesn’t have the grace of the original but suggests hints of its beauty. Here’s the song in full:
Do You Follow Me?
Jacky Terrason is an outstanding jazz artist and composer we’ve been following. Recently performed in SanFran with his trio. Here he provides the intro piano licks, and his trio backs up Bertault, but the song, poem and chord progression, the composition, is Camille’s.
Here is Bertault’s poem in French, then English translation (non-rhymed but close meanings)
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Est-ce Que Tu Me Suis?
“Là où se perdent les pas
où la foule se noie
Où ricochent les cœurs en battement de temps
Où s échappe le vent
Là où s épuise la route
Des âmes qui doutent
Là où se dessinent
L’ombre des échines
Où les chemins s’entassent
Où s’ouvrent les impasses
Là où fondent les secondes
Où les toits se confondent
Où la lune rougit
lorsque tu lui souris
Où se coursent les rêves où les gouttes de pluies
deviennent aquarelle est-ce que tu me suis?
Là où on se prend les pieds dans des rêves en pelote
où la main de la nuit
Nous glisse dans sa poche
Où il ne reste plus que nos cœurs qui clignotent
Là Où les étoiles tachent nos
Bouilles de gosses
Où les boules de suie se changent en carrosses
Où les chats s enamourent
Jusqu a ce que le jour
Perce le premier nuage,
Et dépose au visage
Une larme gouttiere
Au parfum d’eau de mer
Pour caresser ta joue
tracer le souvenir
d m’une nuit qui se fout
Du meilleur et du pire;
Là où griffent les pensées
Qu’on croyait envolées
Où s’orchestre la rue
De sons alambiqués
Où flottent les nuées
De rires étouffés
Là où le charbon habille
Les corps enlacés
Où nagent les passions
Dans l’encre renversée
Ou l’on repêche les
Désirs dissimulés;
Là où mènent les coulisses
De nos artifices
Où s ‘ouvrent les tiroirs
De nos songes en miroirs
Où nos cœurs en corolles
Pétales de paroles
Que je te chante ici
Est ce que tu me suis?“
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Translation: Are You Following Me/Do You Follow Me?
"There where the steps are lost
where the crowd drowns in itself
Where hearts ricochet in the beat of time
Where the wind escapes,
where the road ends in
Souls who doubt where they are drawn to;
The shadow of the spines
where the paths pile up
Where dead ends open,
where the seconds melt
Where the roofs merge,
where the moon blushes when you smile at it;
Where do the dreams run
Where the raindrops become watercolors
Do you follow me?
Where we get stuck in dreams
Like a ball when the hand of night
Slips us into his pocket;
Where there's nothing left
But our blinkered hearts
Where the stars stain our childlike faces
Where balls of soot turn into carriages
Where cats fall in love
Until the day pierces the first cloud,
And drops in the face
A teardrop with the scent of seawater
To caress your cheek, trace the memory
A night that doesn't give a damn
For the best and the worst;
Where thoughts claw, that we thought had flown away
Where the street is orchestrated
with convoluted sounds,
Where the clouds float with stifled laughter,
Where coal covers the entwined bodies
Where passions swim in spilled ink
Where we fish out hidden desires;
Where the backstage leads to our artifices
Where the drawers open
To our mirrored dreams
Where our hearts lie in corollas,
Petals of words that I sing to you here
Do you follow me?”
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For pure Classical, here is Camille doing the upper part of the Goldberg Variations, amazing (move over, Swingle Singers):
And here she is with David Helbock, performing a concert set at the Strandpark in Germany (btw she speaks French, English, Portuguese fluently, and some German. End of the set she does a Bossa Nova rap in fluent Portuguese). Go to about 22:35 and see how she physically performs the Goldberg, her elocution and rhythmic movement are perfect, each beat in the center of the rhythm. She could be a Classical conductor if she wished. And what a fine young composer already! Unquestionably one of the greatest jazz singers and writers of the new generation:
Helbock is awesome too, as you will see. Geniuses combining their talent in extraordinary compositions. Set starts with a very languorous recitative over a minor 7th-chord ostinato with harmonics, then picks up the pace. At about 7:30 she explains the inception of these pieces. Then they do some classic-style slow swing, then some incredible scat singing, then Bach’s Goldberg. Then an improvisation in Baroque style, all theirs, with some French rap on musical technique! Then some brilliant contempo French jazz, also theirs, then their variation of a ‘Dancer in the Dark’ tune in English, and the Brazilian set, amazing, haunting writing. Her voice quality and technique is astonishing.
In some of her interviews Bertault talks about the hypomania that drives many artists, and how she was able to channel it. As a student she assiduously practiced Debussy and Ravel, possibly the most difficult jazz-like classical repertoire for piano. So when she graduated she was a musician of exceptional talent. Trained rigorously in the classics, she fell in love with jazz and at 29 is already an awesome composer-performer. What she might be like in 10 or 20 years is probably magisterial, because older musicians don't fade away, they improve like fine wine. Perhaps she will be the next Nadia Boulanger, a female composer who held her own in a male-dominated field last century, and became an extraordinarily influential teacher of 20th-century composers, both sides of the pond.
Vive Camille! Vive les artistes exceptionelles!
