Jean-Michel Davis is one of those rare musicians whose artistic sincerity is matched only by his rich musical background. In This n’ That, the vibraphonist continues to explore the sound possibilities of his instrument. With his quintet (Julien Charlet, Raphaël Schwab, Frédéric Loiseau and Patrick Villanueva), he pays tribute to some of the most beautiful jazz standards and French chansons (Weill, Trenet, Gershwin, Gainsbourg), and presents us with several of his own noteworthy compositions. Not to mention, the vocals, admirably performed by Daniel Huck (who hasn’t lost a drop of his scatting pizazz in Feeling Good) and Juliette Pearl Davis (who brings a surprising freshness to this repertory). A high fidelity jazz, deliberately fifties, at the frontier of bop and cocktail music.
