The result of a long improvisation and composition journey by internationally recognized jazzman Frédéric Alarie, The Magnitude of Forbidden Synaptic Exchanges is his all-new sound method and the creative music residency project at the Centre d’Expérimentation Musicale, in which he broadens his already vast playing palette on the double bass with Eurorack types of modular synthesizers. After a musical career of almost 30 years and innumerable collaborations with a Who’s Who of the milieu including names like Michel Legrand and Charles Aznavour, Alarie now entirely focusses on composition and his own creative research. Driven by his one of a kind improvisational style, this music – half written, half “discovered on the way” – is welded by a mysterious metallurgy resulting from the presence of more-than-classical multi percussionist Robert Pelletier and multi-instrumentalist Pascal Beaulieu alongside the double bassist. The trio simple-mindedly dives in a world of play, opening a surprise box whose content is made visible by the fractal scribing of artist Simon Lacoste.
- Frédéric Alarie
- Modular synthesizer
- Double bass
- Composition
- Pascal Beaulieu
- Electric guitar
- Robert Pelletier
- Vibraphone
- Percussion
- Drums
- Simon Lacoste
- Generative video
Since his arrival on the jazz music scene in the late 1980s, Frédéric Alarie has never stopped deepening and enriching his double bass playing. He has a reputation as a skilled builder, who likes to deconstruct the agreed upon scaffolding of jazz and erect it again. His game is described as fluid, sensitive and most daring. He joined the ensembles of Bernard Primeau, Lorraine Desmarais, Jean-Pierre Zanella and Yannick Rieu to name just a few. From Canada to China, via France, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Poland and the United States, everywhere as a guest, he left his mark as a double bassist of very high caliber. He had the chance to play with famous artists such as Oliver Jones, Ranee Lee, Sheila Jordan, John Abercrombie, Renaud Garcia-Fons, Georges Benson, Salvator Adamo, Nathalie Dessay, Charles Aznavour and Michel Legrand.
