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Tapis Bleu  |
Seasoned
Burlington musicians Caroline O’Connor and Sean Altrui have recently
flowered into world-jazz duo Tapis Bleu. Say it out loud, and the
cadence of the words will bring you close to the smooth sounds of sax
and djembe. It’s useless to try to place their sound, though -
the vibrant sound-scapes of Tapis Bleu truly transcend genres.
It
was refreshing to sit down with two mature artists who are so
approachable and intelligent – and on a beautiful day in City Park, to
boot. (Be sure to listen to the full interview!)
Catch Tapis Bleu next Tuesday, March 24th at the ½ Lounge, and come to the Monkey on May first for their EP release party.
Deli - Tell me about your musical history and how you two have come together to play music.
Sean
– Well, I played with Jenn Karson who is one of the members of an all
female rock band called Zola Turn who had a pretty good following here
in the 90’s… I played with [her] for about a year back in 2000…[after
playing with a few other musicians in Burlington] I did some solo
shows, and got over playing live for a while and got into booking…with
the Cush and Lendway…
Caroline and I met through Gabby and
Burette, we got introduced about 5 years ago briefly at a show… We were
reintroduced about a year ago, I had been bugging her about seeing her
play….and then I [asked her to play with me.]
And the rest as they say is history. Hah. Kinda started jamming on sax and djembe together.
Deli – So you would describe yourself as more of a percussionist?
Sean
- For this, yeah, I play other instruments, too, but for this I’m
getting back into hand drums and that sort of thing. I also sort of
like messing around with electronics a bit….I really loved her
saxophone, and thought maybe if we try to loop some of this great stuff…
Caroline
– Well, see people have called it like tribal, jazz or world. Our
friend Burette was like ‘you’re inventing a new kind of jazz…’ It [is a
mix of] a lot of genres, but a new one.
I have played some of our mellower stuff for massage…a lot of people are like, what is this music? Ha ha.
Deli – Are you both from Vermont?
Caroline
– I am from across the lake; I moved here in ’98, studied some
classical and jazz saxophone at UVM. Once, I put my sax away for
a year and helped start Radio Bean.
I used to work the open mic
shift, and when it first opened it was really dead. Lee, the owner,
would say ‘why don’t you go grab your saxophone, it would make the
night go by faster.’ That kind of got me back in to playing first, and
playing with rockers. I had only played classical and jazz my entire
life. I had never done anything like that until the open mic at the
Bean. I met all kinds of people that way…sat in with everybody but
didn’t have my own thing for a while. I did play with the Cush for a
year…which got me a bit more into the world of Burlington music.
Deli – How long have you guys been working on this project.
Less than a year….
Sean - We have played four shows, currently. [Including] at the South End Art hop last year.
Deli – What are your goals for Tapis Bleu? Would you like to tour?
Caroline
- One thing we really want to do is get our music as backgrounds for
movie soundtracks. We would like to play out more, but for now,
there are so many people around here, even some of our friends haven’t
heard us yet!
Sean – We’re trying it out – the response we got
after the first time we played together was really positive. We
hibernated through he winter, and recorded with Burette…everything just
came together.
Caroline – [Our style] is a good blend of
structure and improvisation. We found [it works best] if we give each
song a specific feel and work that sort of way.
Deli – Tell me about this tre cool name of yours.
Sean
- We both kind of came up with names we liked…we both have an affinity
for Montreal, we like that city, so we were talking about doing
something in French. [The space] where we rehearse is kind of called
‘the blue room. It’s got this great old blue shag carpet - that really
deep blue, you know what I mean? Unmistakably blue…
Caroline - It is screaming blue, from the sixties…
Sean – I was looking at one of those translation dictionaries, and happened to look up ‘blue carpet.’ And it was Tapis Bleu.
Caroline – That’s where we rehearse, and where we get all our inspiration…
Interview by Adena Harford
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