Why
does one want to become a musician? For some people, the answer is due
to the circumstances, to their social background, to their ancestry. For
others, such as David El Malek, it is closely bound to vital necessities,
to inner wrenches, to a worried call giving it a salutary outcome - the
full meaning that the word vocation should keep. Within Music from
Source, the return made by David El-Malek to the music of his roots
echoes the meaning that music has given to his life. The reason why his
musical plan is so moving is that he unites the whole music he likes and
reconciles the saxophone player to a part of himself.
Music from Source - As regards the choice of such a repertoire,
nothing picturesque nor exotic, nothing anecdotal nor superficial. David
has always borne this music and these songs within him. Each one has its
own story. They have never left him, particularly when his family left
Israel, while he was just a little boy, to live back to France, the native
land he did not know. Shifted around constantly from one nation to the
other, each one with its strong identity, torn between two languages and
two cultures, cut off from his roots like a shrub which did not have enough
time to become impregnated with the ground where he started to grow, David
did not succeed in understanding what his real identity was. In this personal
wrench, this childhood fantasized by memory and haunted by happy moments
which seemed to be definitely lost, lies the origin of many motivations
which makes the musician of today.
Music from Source - He comes back to the melodies of his childhood,
making a detour through jazz however, because when he was twenty, David
(who had never thought about becoming a musician up to then) discovered
the tenor saxophone and understood that this instrument could direct his
future. What was at stake in his existence at that time only happens once
in a lifetime: David did everything to convert his intuition into reality.
Many hours of relentless learning until exhaustion, until driving his
circle mad; his endless energy to progress, supported by the conviction
that technical skill is the key to freedom ; the unshakeable faith that
in the music a Sesame hides opening the doors of himself ; the persistence
in understanding the codes of jazz to make it his musical foundation…everything
came finally true until raising him to the best level and allow himself
to be considered as one of the most outstanding tenor saxophonist of his
time, witness his part in Ilium of Pierre de Bethmann, in Blowing Trio
of the piano player Laurent Coq, in “Friends” of the drummer
André Ceccarelli, in the new group of Baptiste Trotignon, as well
as the records he realized with his own quartet.
Few musicians, whatever their aesthetic fields, can boast about having
lived their introduction to music with such enthusiasm and dedication,
such hard line and ambition. Aware of being carried away by a vital energy,
David does not take any pride in it, so happy to have seized the opportunity
to come back to his own life. Music did appear to him as a thread of hope
allowing to weave again the shreds of a split life and close up the wounds
of deep angst and inconsolable sadness. Thanks to it, his story becomes
united at last, the pieces of a puzzle which seemed never to have to correspond
gather suddenly, and David El-Malek can find again the “waste of
time” he has so long searched for.
Music from Source - As it was once for Charlie Parker, John Coltrane
or Sonny Rollins, inexhaustible soloists often reserved for daily occurrence,
for David El-Malek, the saxophone has become an extension of himself,
the vector of the words he has not been able to say for a long time. If
his improviser speech is so clear, if he seems to be motivated by an inner
urgency, is because he has a sincere voice which has managed to express.
He also opens his heart through the instrument like a release of the words.
But David's development is far from being finished. Music bulimic, eager
to learn, he studies orchestration, he initiates himself into classical
writing, takes great interest in the saxophone transcribing of classical
works because he now has a desire to make his jazzman talents concur with
the intimate heritage of the songs he wants to pass on to the world just
as he hears them within himself : played by a symphonic orchestra.
Supported by the arranger Christophe Dal Sasso, he embarked on the adventure
of Music from Source with an ardour likely to move Mount Sinai.
The première of this programme with the national Orchestra of Lyon
on April 2004 in the city auditorium turned out to be a moving moment
which deeply increased his desire to go further. When the orchestra started,
a whole memory awakened and remembered his childhood in the Mediterranean
sun, freeing the moving song of a vibrating soul. For it is a question
of lyricism and appropriation: David El-Malek does not pursue any scholarly
architecture nor complex developments. What he looks for in the symphonic
environment is the unique power of the instrumental mass, its ability
to overwhelm the listener, the colour gamut which will offer these tunes
all the resonance they deserve. Supported by the orchestra and his quartet,
he wants the saxophone to inhabit each note of his songs, make them radiant,
project them like a series of pictures reminiscent of a secular land,
the cradle of humanity. If the result appears to be too simple or too
sentimental for some is because they will not have understood his ambition,
nor the sincere commitment he is prompted by. Like in “Focus”
by Stan Getz or “Winter Moon” by Art Pepper, the orchestra comes
and lavishes his saxophone to drive him to identify precisely this form
of sensitive evidence where the borderlines between jazz, popular melodies
and symphonic writing fade away for the benefit of a united music.
Music from Source - David El-Malek plays these simple songs as
others sang daily troubles and little good times. This is his own blues,
the anchorage of life in deep melancholy, this link to the song like his
hope, this cathartic experience through the song of a people torn up from
its land and deprived of any mother tongue. He plays this music as the
greatest jazzmen have always done it, giving himself body and soul, totally
dedicating himself to his performance, allowing his instinct to speak
rather than his reason. Not many artists have such an intimate and strong
link between their art and their life; not many artists use notes so loaded
with meaning and feeling; not many moments exist when music seem so literally
to come from source.
Vincent Bessières. Jazzman
