Samy Thiébault

Born in Côte d'Ivoire, Samy Thiébault studied classical music at the Bordeaux Conservatoire before joining the jazz class at the Paris Conservatoire in 2004. He graduated in 2008. At the same time as his musical studies, he obtained a master's degree in Philosophy (summa cum laude) at the Sorbonne (2001).

Blues For Nel was released in 2004, followed by Gaya Scienza in 2007 and Upanishad Expériences in 2010 (the first album to be produced by his own label, Gaya Music Productions). Clear Fire was released in 2013. It was also at that time that he began working extensively with dance, theatre and film: music for the dance show Les Autres Sois in 2022, Nadir Mokneche's film, L'Air de la mer, in 2023, and Edouard Tissot's En Son Absence in 2014. In 2013, he was appointed Professor of Jazz and Saxophone at the Choisy-le-Roi Conservatoire.

The release in 2015 of Feast Of Friends, a tribute to The Doors, was a major turning point in Samy's career, and led him to invite the great trumpeter Avishai Cohen for his album Rebirth in 2016.

In 2018, he released Caribbean Stories, the first part of a triptych on Creolisation. It is an album in the form of a subjective journey to the heart of the Caribbean. In her preface to the album, Minister Christiane Taubira wrote: "In all likelihood, Samy Thiébault has perceived the plasticity of this music. They vary. They rarely shout, they take care of their geographical roots as much as they maintain their cultural branches, much less, however, than they bear witness to the blows and upheavals that gave them birth, to the abyss from which they come, to the edge of the abyss that they have assiduously frequented, unwillingly. From the chaos that gave them substance. And a rumbling serenity".

In September 2019, Samy Thiébault released a project fulfilling a dream he has had for over ten years: to write a suite for symphony orchestra and jazz quintet, uniting the worlds of 20th-century French music, black American spiritual jazz of the 1960s and Indian classical music. Thanks to a powerful encounter with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne, conductor Aurélien Azan Zielinsky and sound engineer Philippe Teissier Du Cros. The album, Symphonic Tales, marks the start of a new adventure for the saxophonist and his band.

The year 2021 saw the release of “Awé!”, an ambitious album recorded in Miami, Cuba, France, and Sao Polo, containing rich and varied influences. The album was also the final part of Samy’s triptych on Creolization. The saxophonist invited the best musicians of the Cuban diaspora to play on the album: Dafnis Prieto (drummer, composer, winner of the Thelonious Monk Competition, Grammy Award 2019), pianist Manuel Valera, Brian Lynch on trumpet (ex-Jazz Messengers, Grammy Award 2020), and Yunior Terry on double bass. Pianist Éric Legnini, a close friend of the saxophonist and one of the most talented pianists in Europe in addition to being a seasoned producer. A string orchestra and chamber orchestra joined the core group on the record.

The saxophonist has played with his group on every continent and at the major European and world festivals and venues (Olympia, Marciac, Nice, Sète, Marseille, Moscow, Montreal, Medellín, Hong Kong, New York, and more). His playing, “Coltranian in the best sense of the word” (Nouvel Obs), “with its dance-like discourse somewhere between trance and spiritual message” (Libération), places him among the “most important and emblematic musicians of his generation” (France Inter), making him “one of France’s country's greatest jazzmen” (JazzNews).

In addition to his numerous critical distinctions (the press is also unanimous: qualified as Indispensable in JazzNews, 4 stars in Jazzmag, a “Coup de Coeur” for France Musique, best album two years in a row for TSF), he has twice made the front page of JazzNews and appeared on the cover of Télérama in 2022. He was nominated in the Best Album category at the 2019 Victoires du Jazz awards, as well as Best Musician of the Year as part of the 2022 Django Reinhardt Prize.Samy won the 2023 Sacem/France Musique prize for best film score for his work on Nadir Moknèche’s feature film, L’air de la mer rend libre (You Promised Me the Sea).

In Waves, Samy's latest album, just released this fall 2024, features a much more intimate, poetic, and socially engaged content than ever before. Not only does he play with his quartet, but he uses sequencers and electronic music elements, whose common gravitational pull is the Ocean…

The album In Waves (Gaya Music Productions) was released in early October 2024: https://inwavesalb.lnk.to/hwv8d9

Clip from Samy Thiébault In Waves Live at Studio Ferber (Paris 20e) recorded with a Supreme tenor saxophone: https://youtu.be/hZy_vpvwjsM

 Photo credit: Henri SELMER Paris - Lucie Bigo