For her first album with ATMA Classique, flautist Nadia Labrie presents the Suite for Flute and Jazz piano by Claude Bolling (1930-2020), an iconoclastic French composer whose series of flute suites has become emblematic of the intersection between jazz and classical music.
Accompanied by Jonathan Turgeon on piano, Dominic Girard on Contrebasse, and Bernard Riche on drums, Nadia Labrie delves into Bolling’s playful and jazzy musical world with this first digital volume in the series, culminating in the release of a box set in 2025 containing both Suites for Flute and Jazz piano and the Picnic Suite.
Bolling said in a 1982 interview with the New York Times: “I don’t pretend to invent anything. I don’t write pieces that are overly concerned with the aesthetics of music, or the representation of genius. I only write music for pleasure. I try to maintain a certain level of taste and quality, of course. But my main objective is to make the musicians happy and, if possible, the audience as well.”