I Hope Gabriel likes my Music, extrait de l’album.
Revue de presse
« …French trumpet player Etcheberry is amazingly powerful without coming across as brash or flamboyant and, alongside Belgian violinist and vocalist Limberger the duo bring pre-war NYC to life. Backed by (quote) ‘the Rolls Royce of rhythm sections’ – no Citroëns or Peugeots for these guys – in the form of French bassist Girardot and British guitarist Kelbie the music swings like only music from that era can. » Lance Liddle – Bebop Spoken Here – october 6th.
« Lawd You made The Night Too Long »« , extrait du nouvel album « Tain’t No Use » du Viper Club, le 30 ocotbre sur radio Côte Sud FM 90.3 dans l’émission de Bernard Labat Les Cats se rebiffent.
« Tain’t No Use » dans l’émission Jazz Time de Daniel Jachet sur Radio Albatros.
« …Et oui ce jazz dit classique était lui aussi déjà incendiaire et le Viper Club nous le rappelle avec brio. Et donc contrairement au titre de l’album signifiant » ça ne sert à rien » nous le trouvons bien utile ! » Philippe Desmond – La Gazette Bleue d’Action Jazz – 29 octobre 2023.
« I played a few tracks from this new CD for a friend, and her response was simple, « It’s like the past, but only better!« »…The musicianship is extraordinary…: there isn’t a dull or formulaic passage on the disc. It’s a cliche, but the four heroes play as if the fate of the world depended on their swing. … » Michael Steinman – Jazz Lives – october 30.
« …Vocaliste compétent et soliste inventif, Tcha Limberger utilise toute la puissance de son violon pour phraser avec énergie.Et il en fallait pour côtoyer un trompettiste de la trempe de Jérôme Etcheberry . En grande forme et dans son élément, Jérôme joue de manière flamboyante en alignant des chorus remarquablement construits et riches en belles surprises. Le contrebassiste Sébastien Girardot et le guitariste Dave Kelbie pallient à l’absence de piano et de batterie, présents dans les enregistrements originaux, en instaurent une pulsation rythmique à la fois ferme et souple et un tapis harmonique qui inspirent les deux solistes. Des musiciens qui font vivre la tradition en la renouvelant et en l’alimentant de leur talent » Alain Tomas – Couleurs Jazz – 7 novembre 23. « HIT » Couleurs Jazz.
« …Led by the French trumpeter Jérôme Etcheberry and the renowned Belgian manouche violinist Tcha Limberger, the Viper Club may be a compact, drummerless quartet, yet they generate effortless momentum thanks to the unobtrusive rhythm guitar of Dave Kelbie and the double bass of Sébastien Girardot….And on the vocal numbers, including the genial I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music, Limberger is a thoroughly relaxed and idiomatic presence. Elsewhere,Viper’s Moan becomes an exercise in understated, bluesy swing. This band are no museum piece; the music still speaks to anyone with a pulse. » Clive Davis – The Times – 4 stars – November 15.
« …Voilà une musique qui n’a pas pris une ride, surtout quand elle est renouvelée avec cette passion et cette fraicheur par des esthètes du jazz de cette classe. Une totale réussite et assurément l’un des disques de l’année. » Francis Couvreux – 25 novembre 23.
« Une plongée dans la hype swing des années 30, par des hurluberlus du 21ème siècle, emmenés par le trompettiste Jérôme Etcheberry et le violoniste Tcha Limberger : « Tain’t No Use du Viper Club, paraît chez Camille Productions. » A la une d’Open Jazz d’Alex Dutilh sur France Musique le 29 Novembre.
« …Inutile de préciser que le swing est au rendez-vous et que, grâce au talent individuel et à la complicité des partenaires, cette plongée dans un monde révolu a quelques chose de revigorant. » Jacques Aboucaya – Jazz Magazine – Décembre – Janvier.
« …The results, hard-driving good-time swing, are frequently exciting and difficult to resist. I imagine that Stuff Smith would have loved to sit in with this group ». Scott Yanow – The Syncopated Times – November 29, 2023.
« …Those sounds emanated from the CD … and why not … here are four top musicians at the top of their game, playing beautifully, but you can feel, enjoying themselves, as well….This was an enjoyable hours listening and can recommend this CD to folk who like a bit of Swing in their life ». Peter Lay – Just Jazz in the UK
« Tain’t No Use » sur la Playlist de fin novembre de la Gazette Bleue d’Action Jazz.
« …Au-delà des prouesses instrumentales (et vocales) il en résulte un disque plein de fraîcheur, de gaité et de nostalgie qui réchauffent le cœur. » Philippe Vincent – le blog de jazznicknames – 4 décembre.
« … la petite phalange régale par le bonheur qu’elle montre à jouer ce répertoire – copieux mais digeste – contagieux et solaire ». Bruno Guermonprez – Jazz News – Décembre Janvier 24.
« …Contrary to what the title of the album ‘Taint no use’ suggests, this CD certainly does have a use. The Viper Club shows what is possible without a guitar in the solo role and with two solo instruments that are usually difficult to combine in terms of sound. A source of inspiration for anyone who wants to play Swing and Django Jazz in a different composition than usual. So: brass and bows, meet each other and make arrangements with vocals and strings!. Joep Thijs – Magazine Quintet Q4 2023 – Nederland.
« The recording is scintillating and immediate..Every solo played by Mr Etcheberry sounds as if he pours out his lines rather than play them. The result is that melodically, his playing gleams and flows like molten metal. Mr Limberger – heard here on the violin is a virtuoso non pareil …This is the proverbial album to die for… Raul da Gama – THATCANADIANMAG- 16 janvier 24.
« …La musique atteint ainsi par moment une intensité inattendue pour un enregistrement actuel, hors du temps normalisé de 2023. Un bon exemple de réactivation créative de la mémoire qui repose sur la liberté du grand artiste qu’est Tcha Limberger! » Jérôme Partage – Jazz Hot
« Autant vous le dire tout de suite, cet album est une parfaite réussite : bonne idée, bon concept, bon casting….La complicité trompette-violon est impressionnante, plus perceptible encore que dans les originaux de 1936…. vous voilà devant un CD qui est certainement à ne pas manquer ! Laurent Verdeaux – Bulletin du HCF n° 712 – Janvier / février 2024.
« Tain’t No Use », Prix du Hot Club de France 2023, catégorie Petites Formations.
« TAIN’T NO USE »
MS072023CD, sortie d’album 27 Octobre 2023.
HIT Couleurs Jazz – 4 stars The Times – A la Une d’Open Jazz – 3 étoiles Jazz Magazine – Prix du Hot Club de France 2023 « Petites Formations »
The Viper Club :
Tcha Limberger (Violon, vo) – Jérôme Etcheberry (Tp), Dave Kelbie (Gu), Sébastien Girardot (contrebasse)
THE VIPER CLUB
What happens when you assemble four of Europe’s foremost jazz musicians playing 17 tunes from an era when popular music was “hot”? The answer is The Viper Club – a quartet who revisit the long-overlooked partnership of African American musicians Stuff Smith and Jonah Jones (the violinist and trumpeter whose joyous, inventive music making as the Onyx Club opened-up the sound of swing in the mid-to-late 1930s).
The Viper Club features violinist Tcha Limberger and trumpeter Jerome Etcheberry as their front-line players while string bassist Sebastien Girardot and guitarist Dave Kelbie provide a powerhouse rhythm section. All four musicians have remarkable pedigree – Tcha is an award winning multi-instrumentalist, deeply connected with Hungarian and Romanian Roma folk music alongside playing top flight jazz, Etcheberry’s one of France’s finest jazz brass players, his 2020 album Satchmocracy found him paying tribute to his musical hero, Louis Armstrong (who also happened to be Jonah Jones’ favourite trumpeter), while Kelbie and Girardot are amongst 21st Century jazz’s most highly regarded rhythm sections – as the solid foundations for Django a la Creole and Don Vappie & Jazz Creole they have rocked festivals and concert halls across the globe.
The Viper Club create scalding sounds. Loosely inspired by Smith and Jones’ recordings from the Onyx Club years, Tcha and Jerome pursue an extremely expressive violin/trumpet dialogue rooted in blues-based improvisation, both musicians feeding off each other. “Stuff and Jonah’s partnership has been avoided by all since,” says Kelbie, “which I understand on the face of it – unless you can find a violinist who plays like a brass player the instrumentation is unlikely to work. With Tcha and Jerome I believe we might just bring violin and trumpet back to front line jazz.”
Revisiting such standards as Ballin’ The Jack, My Blue Heaven, Lawd You Made The Night Too Long, Swanee River and After You’re Gone, the Vipers explore the richness, beauty and mystery in these numbers, their dynamic ensemble playing ensuring each number bristles with vitality, colour and a clear commitment to Swing. The Vipers not only revisit Smith/Jones’ repertoire, they took their name from Stuff’s most famous composition: he wrote and first recorded You’se A Viper in 1936, the song quickly becoming a jazz standard (alongside being considered the greatest ever celebration of smoking marijuana). This wry tune, which when the likes of Fats Waller popularised it, led to outrage from US government hacks then determined to harass jazz musicians (they loathed the freedoms jazz offered – in opposition to racist US society), can be seen as a celebration of free spirited creativity. Thus the Viper Club!
Determined to honour those who have come before them, the Vipers – Kelbie, Limberger, Etcheberry and Girardot – understand that jazz from the pre-WW2 era was just as incendiary and innovative as that made by modernist icons of the LP age. Yet where Miles and Trane and Sun Ra are venerated today, the likes of Stuff Smith and Jonah Jones have been largely forgotten. The Onyx Club brought violin to the forefront of jazz, today the Viper Club continues this venerable tradition.
Garth Cartwright