Hugo Blouin's instrument is the double bass. To my ear, jazz centered on the bass tends to be more creative. It's almost certainly more bouncy. And for someone like Blouin, who apparently never dismissed an idea for being too wacky, the sound can trend toward a bounding.

Hugo Blouin Le Buffet (Ambiances Magnétiques)

The ten songs on this album were inspired by conversations with friends. I think snippets of those are included, but my French is 40 years gone and my seventh grader (a second-year French student) walked out of the room when the music started playing. In any case, that alone might illustrate what the listener is in for here.

Manic? To a fault, though it's a fault that makes my heart race. Blouin is clearly having a good time playing with this idea, and he thrashes through any number of jazz idioms (and plenty more after that) in fleshing out these conversations. There are a couple of contemplative moments, but even those are suffused with the spirit of experimentation. Blouin does not like to sit still.

I'm here for it. This is not free jazz. Blouin clearly composed and arranged these pieces. I imagine that some of his conversational partners also helped him flesh out this conversation-as-song conceit as well. Their obvious connection deepens the meaning of these pieces. Do I know what it's all about? Of course not. In some ways, that mystery makes this even more alluring. The music, of course, is far more than enough.

Jon Worley