Julien Lourau (FR)

About

French saxophonist Julien Lourau has never been content to stay in one lane. His 1999 album Gambit threw electronic textures into his jazz vocabulary and pulled in a whole new crowd of younger listeners, while 2002's The Rise pulled him back toward a more classic jazz sound and is still considered his most fully realized work. He draws on Latin, African, Caribbean and European folk traditions, which gives his music an unusually wide palette. His 2007 project Julien Lourau vs Rumbabierta pushed further still, blending his avant garde jazz sensibility with Afro Cuban sounds. Lourau got his start with Trash Corporation alongside guitarist Noël Akchoté and pianist Bojan Zulfikarpasic, and later co founded the collective Olympic Gramofon. Over the years he has kept busy, releasing Power of Soul, the Music of CTI in 2021 and following it with Crianças, the Music of Wayne Shorter in 2023, a tribute to one of jazz's great composers.