While some musicians are content to accompany the artist performing on stage in concert, others seem to commune with him, following him with their gaze, and even joining their voices to his. This is the case of cellist Martina Rodriguez and drummer Pierre Mahier, companions of Vaslo, singer with a golden voice, poet, clarinetist, shaper of dreams, and purveyor of enthusiasm.
Pierre Mahier, virtuoso drummer (Photo Jean-Rémi Barland)
“Music is not only listened to…It is heard”
Throughout the Off d’Avignon, this trio enchanted the spectators of the Arrache-coeur where this extraordinary singer-songwriter performed, whose characters described seem to be brothers in heart of the offbeat little beings who populate the universe of Sempe. Pierre Mahier likes to say: “Vaslo is incredible. It’s a character, an entity, a voice that slips into us as if to whisper advice to us. He puts simple words on things we all feel. We find personal things in his songs and a concert by his side is a journey. » Inexhaustible Pierre Mahier remembers with emotion the first parts realized by Vaslo during concerts signed Romain Didier or the group « Debout sur le zinc ». And will be with him in the coming days in Barjac, Langogne, Le Mans, Biert or the Grotte de Lombrives.
Anne Sylvestre at Le Limonaire
Crazy about music, with a generosity equal to his talent, Pierre Mahier likes to rub shoulders with artists. As a complementary activity to his job as a drummer, he was a waiter in the mythical Parisian venue Le Limonaire, which is now closed after the death of its director and manager Nicole Tartier. “That’s where I discovered the world of song,” he says very moved. “There was a concert every evening, and among the guest artists like Nicolas Jules alone in front of a microphone, all were synonymous with excellence. They made me understand that music is not only listened to but heard. But one singer moved me more than another: it was Anne Sylvestre who came regularly to the Limonaire. With her I discovered the importance of texts and the weight that could be given to words and notes, so much, and we do not say it enough Anne Sylvestre was an immense musician. I felt with her and the other guests of Le Limonaire, including Vaslo who was very close to the place, that a word could turn everything upside down in our lives. “This meeting with the one he followed in Avignon Pierre Mahier remembers it very well: “There was the International Festival of Free Artistic Expression, one of the oldest open stages in Paris. I was called to participate. I got in touch with Vaslo and we worked together and won everything. He is for me a brother of words and notes. Having also worked with the singer Emmanuelle Cadoret, and Pierre Gauthé, the former trombonist of Mano Negra who went to Têtes Raides, Pierre Mahier, also composes and writes. “I am very sensitive to texts,” he insists. “What I hear speaks to me. That I commune with the singer on stage. And he, a virtuoso drummer, concludes with modesty and a brotherly spirit: “It’s so much stronger if two of us say the same thing. »
Jean-Remi BARLAND
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