The musician draws on the distinctive phrasing of American stand-up to construct an “ultrascore” that is both humorous and political, enriched with choirs and strings.
It was while working on harmonizing the best-known sketch of my favorite comedian, George Carlin, “Seven Dirty Words,” that I isolated the melody of “Rude Crude Lude.” This piece explores the taboos of puritanism, the power of words, and the hypocrisy surrounding vulgarity and crude language.
George Carlin’s phrasing gave birth to a melody that I instantly recognized, from the very first notes, as if it had always existed,” Chassol enthused on Instagram, unveiling early in the spring the first single from Funny How?, the new “ultrascore” in his captivating discography.
Incessantly, the French musician, who will celebrate half a century this autumn, continues his method of harmonizing reality. With the grace, verve and ease that have characterized him since his beginnings at Tricatel in 2012, after having long been a sought-after keyboardist (from Phoenix to Sébastien Tellier).
“The ultrascore is a film music that would use the sounds of images to build itself,” explains Chassol. A geeky thing, a technique both highly precise and wildly poetic, an attempt at total synergy between images and sounds.”
After India (Indiamore, 2013), his Caribbean roots (Big Sun, 2015) and Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game (Ludi, 2020), released eleven days before the historic lockdown and performed in a preview at Inrocks Festival 2020, the composer and pianist drew for Funny How? — a title chosen in reference to Joe Pesci’s famous line in Goodfellas — from the cadences of American stand-up performers.
In the summer of 2024, as part of a residency at Villa Albertine, Chassol crossed the Atlantic to meet and film stand-up comedians in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. With the help of his manager Boris Memmi behind the camera, he gathered footage for the film that will illustrate his music during performances, such as the two exhilarating opening shows of Funny How? at the Cité de la Musique in April, where he was joined by his trusted drummer Mathieu Édouard, Magma’s bassist Philippe Bussonnet and the stunning singer Ala.ni (who had already toured with Ludi), all of whom also contributed to the recording of the album produced with Clément Daquin, alias Alb.
“Like every time, before heading to the United States, I’d accumulated material by harmonizing sketches of Chicago comedians I was going to meet. I always carry chord grids, motifs, melodies in my bags that will allow me to integrate everything with what I will record on site,” he explains.
The real novelty for this album is that I compose the music before I ‘melodize’ the voices. Previously, I started from the ‘melodification’ of the voices to deduce the chords and the rhythm of the prosody. Now, I can attach whatever I want, without forcing rhythmic symmetry. It took me seventeen years to understand it; it’s my Copernican revolution. It’s as if I finally understood that you can switch the switch. What I lost in radicality, I gained in fluidity.”
For twenty years, Chassol had regularly set to music comedians, from Eddie Murphy to George Carlin, including Dave Chappelle, whom he applauded at the Alhambra this winter and who is heard in the opening track In Comedy (And in Music).
“Laughter is a serious matter, it’s evident,” he asserts. Laughter is as much a weapon as a shield, especially in the times we are living through.” True to his previous ultrascores, Chassol manages to deftly weave a narrative thread around stand-up, cleverly combining the sketches from comedy clubs, punchlines and the sequences of choirs and strings.
A haute couture musical work which, behind the cathartic powers of humor, also sends political messages addressing daily injustices. Laughter (Is the Best Medicine), as heard in one of the more explicit tracks from Funny How?.
Funny How? (Ludi Magister/Créature/Bigwax). Release on May 22. In concert at the Folies Bergère, Paris, on November 30.
