At the Christine cinema (75), during its 25th edition, the festival Jazz à Saint-Germain des Prés rend hommage à Michel Portal. With the screening of Benjamin Delattre’s film, Some notes on freedom. A film in which the brilliant musician and creator is the main character, “the hero”, as he takes us into his laboratory and takes us behind the scenes of his creations.
Died on February 12 at the age of 90, Michel Portal était a virtuoso of all music, jazz-classical-contemporary, a multi-faceted clarinet rebel… Born in Bayonne in 1935, he studied at the city’s conservatory to emerge, a few decades later, as a grandiose free and performing electron. Soloist or traveling companion of the most gifted of his generation, French or American, from multi-instrumentalist Bernard Lubat to the late guitarist Sylvain Luc, he performs on small and large stages from Uzeste to Minneapolis, from New Morning to the Huma Festival… From Mozart to jazz, clarinet on his lips, he will have loved everything, played everything, lived everything with passion and intensity. An endearing man, of deep and sincere humanity, a musician of immense talent. In tribute to the artist, Chantiers de culture is putting back online the interview carried out in 2016 on the occasion of the Saint-Germain Jazz Festival à Paris. Between tradition and improvisation, nuggets now to be savored on turntablebeautiful and great moments of music and conviviality. Yonnel Liégeois
The 25th edition of the festival Jazz à Saint-Germain des Présfrom May 18 to 24. At Christine Cinéma Clubscreening of the film Some notes on freedom on Wednesday 05/20 at 6:00 p.m. in the presence of his musician friend Daniel Humair and Benjamin Delattre, the director. Two additional sessions will take place on May 23 and 24 at 2:00 p.m.
THE PRINCE OF THE CLARINET
Like Obélix, as atypical as he is endearing, Michel Portal is one of those people who fell into it at a very young age! “Very young, I felt music,” confesses our man. His teachers at the age of ten? His father and the other musicians of the Harmonie de Bayonne… Coming from a modest background, he was introduced to popular music, “variety in the good sense of the term”. His favorite instruments? “The trumpet first, we couldn’t afford a piano at home.” First prize for clarinet at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris in 1959 and at the Geneva International Competition in 1963, Grand Prix de la Musique in 1983.Michel Portal was considered, by critics and peers alike, as “the prince of the clarinet”. Classically trained, he does not hesitate to to venture in all musical fields. From Mozart to Kagel, from Duke Ellington to Pierre Boulez… “I am as passionate about performing a concerto by Ravel as a piece of contemporary music by Stockhausen. From my youth, I appreciated musical mixes, the dialogue between genres. I listen with equal happiness to Léo Ferré and the great Duke.”
“Jazz musicians were able to tell me that I was not a jazzman… And classics, that I was not a classic… It’s possible. I always answer that I am a musician, my itinerary has no borders ». Michel Portal
Solitary with a strong character but hidden tenderness,man nourishes his richness of interpretation with the rage that the madness of our world inspires in him. “I am always amazed by this crazy race against time which seems to characterize my contemporaries: to go where? Surely so as not to see the truth, so as not to think that the massacre is imminent if nothing changes. An example? Israel-Palestine relations: why accept this “mess” for as long as it has lasted? I sometimes have the impression that people build their happiness on a language of death.” A musician, Portal prefers to sell dreams or utopias. “A man with a left-wing heart, certainly, but above all not a politician, rather a rebel!”For the clarinet virtuoso, music is above all a game of truth with which it is impossible to cheat.
“Mozart, for example, is for me a composer who is endangered by music. It forces you, like any form of music, to rise spiritually.to emerge from the age of beast of our poor humanity”. As proof, the interpretation of “Clarinet Concerto K622» that Michel Portal constantly brings back to the work to try to unravel its mysteries. Eyes closed, gaze inspired, the performer then transports us to unknown territories where the unspeakable becomes close, where the notes of his instrument have the magical gift of transforming us into beautiful and intelligent beings. The instant of a measure, the time of a score, of one note to another, we even dare to believe it! His major wish? Stay in love with music, keep the child freshleave one’s ear open to the delights of melody… Yonnel Liégeois
Portal, a fiery breath
Michel Portal is a special case in the French musical landscape. Virtuoso poly-instrumentalist (clarinets, saxophones, bandoneon), he is both an international soloist, hailed as “the Callas of clarinetists”, and a tireless explorer of free music. Classical (Mozart, Brahms, Poulenc…), contemporary (Berio, Boulez, Kurtág, Rihm…), jazz (with homages to Monk, Parker or Coleman), song (Barbara, Nougaro, Gainsbourg), film music… He crosses genres as one crosses imaginary borders, with the same fiery breath.
In this book of interviews, Michel Portal gives himself up without reservation. He summons his memories, his encounters, his experiences, his revolts and his wonders. This story of an intense musical life is also that of a free, polymorphous and elusive man.. A vibrant tribute to music as a playground, of desire and risk. A celebration of sound in all that it is most direct, most magical, most human. Patrick Frémeaux
The Portal breath – From classical to jazz: from Mozart to Monk, Franck Médioni (éd. Fremeaux&Associés, 160 p., 20€).
