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Hadrien Feraud: I hope jazz will become popular again

Hadrien Feraud

— How do you think, jazz what is it?

— Jazz is a genre that allows more freedom for musicians mostly, both composition and playing wise. As a result, most of the time in today's jazz especially, the audience would have to be sharper than average listener is in term of culture to be able to take it and relate to it. Jazz used to be a "popular thing" 50 years ago, I would say that back then, jazz was more accessible and pop was smarter, as opposed to nowadays when pop music has gone dumb especially in the dance world, when meanwhile, jazz has gone even smarter than it used to be. You can obviously do the math on how jazz is being considered among masses today!

— How does it feel being a world famous bass player, an icon for millions?

— Millions? Maybe thousands at the most. I'm very grateful for it!

Obviously, it feels amazing to be supported by a few but this can go away pretty quick if you don't renew or reinvent yourself. So I don't go crazy over it, though it even scares and pressures me a bit to be honest. I'm rarely fully satisfied with myself, especially in "live" situations. Now on a "self-promoting" note, I'm eager to release my new album Born in the 80's; I think it's going to create slightly new opinions about me, which I really need at this point.

— What is the most memorable moment of your musical career?

— There are many of all sorts. Here's one the most ambiguous that happened to me 3 years ago, when I went auditioning for Estelle (she became famous with her single American boy) and they were looking for a bassist and guitarists. When I got there, I saw like 17 bass players, all good friends of mine, and only one guitarist. We all went one by one to do the presentations to her and the managers. They asked each one of us to play "whatever we want" so they could judge on our technical abilities. I thought that if I show my real technical abilities that would be exactly the reason of losing that job, so I just played a solid groove with a couple of fills but nothing too fancy or even too "smart", thinking that they're going to judge on the tone and the feel.

Anyway when I'm finished they ask me to stay around, a bit later they called all of us at once without our instruments and then the fun part started. A choreographer was there and there we were, having to follow her moves. Then again we had to go out the room and wait when they'd call us back. With our basses they started calling us up one by one and we had to play the song and follow the choreographer's move at the same time. Needless to say, especially for those who know me, I am not Verdine White, so I just played the bass line pretty well, taping the rhythm with my left heel, with a slight "wanna be sexy" hips move… Oh, man, that was pathetic!

The interesting part of the story is that none of us got the gig and they kept the original bass player, who doesn't really dance either. Never found out why this audition was put together but I had a lot of fun looking stupid.

— Do you think that to become a true jazzman you have to live in New York for a while?

— It's always better to experience things directly from where they mostly originally took place and where the spirit of them and the real way it's done is happening on a daily basis, like blues in New Orleans or Memphis as well as Baiao in Bahia (Brazil), Jazz in New Orleans and NYC of course, etc. Therefore, without having to be living where it originated, you might want to visit places according to the type of music you're really interested in doing to understand and feel one genre better and also just because if it's your passion you might want to know the history of it. Well today I guess you can even go to many more towns than the ones I mentioned for those genres and still find the "real thing" anyways.

And if you can't afford the trip, just keep analyzing and absorbing music every day, it became really easy nowadays. Millions of musicians in the world developed their skills and picked up the newest musical tendencies with the help of internet. As a result, today you can find Korean or Serbian musicians who sound like musicians from New York or Los Angeles, almost as they grew up in US. But nothing replaces the physical experience of course.

— If not music what would you do for a living?

— I would probably be in the acting and the fitness world. By the way these are the thing I wanted to do ever since I was five years old.

— What are your plans for a future?

— Composing, producing, recording and touring with my own music, besides I'll be always looking for a good opportunity as a sideman as well.

— What do you know about Russian jazz scene?

— It's a great scene! The last time I was in Moscow in 2010 and I remember the level of musicianship being very high! I think about guys like Anton Davidyants or Feodor Dusumov, these guys are scary! It's impossible not to mention that Russian people are very kind and friendly, you always know where you stand with them.

— If you have a chance to play with any musician ever existed who it will be?

Probably Sting, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, John Scofield.

— What will be with jazz in a hundred years?

— If Music keeps being produced by non-musicians, if the music industry, that is already composed of non-musicians at more than 50%, keeps allowing anyone, who has an utterly "average talent" (as opposed to a REAL talent) to become successful and feed masses with "fast food music" as I call it, then the music education in schools may even disappear as a result. People have already started to call "amazing" things that really aren't. Why? Lack of references. They don't know better because of what they're fed.Today, the 15-25 years old "non-musicians" masses can't really understand the difference between the talent of Sting and David Guetta.

The way I see it is jazz is going to be a Fusion for sure. Actually, it already is. Hopefully someone will take it back to popular, but it won't be without being smart and coming to a happy medium with masses.

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The KoktebelJazzParty festival is a COVID-free zone. Given the difficult epidemiological situation, the terms of access to the festival may be changed, depending on the epidemiological situation in the region and the recommendations issued by the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor).
All festival participants, guests and spectators must present at least one of the three documents listed below:

  • A negative PCR test performed not earlier than August 18, 2021
  • A certificate showing the presence of antibodies to the S-protein of COVID-19, issued not earlier than May 25, 2021
  • A COVID-19 vaccination certificate

All guests, members of the audience and media representatives must wear masks and gloves at the festival venues.