One day, in 2018, Didier Lasserre and Christine Wodrascka found themselves in the transatlantic project THE BRIDGE, in a Franco-American free jazz or improvised music quintet, "les Minuscules Sangliers", with Keefe Jackson, Dave Rempis and Peter Orins.
On a three-week tour of France, Didier L and Christine W had the opportunity to observe each other, to cross-fertilise their music and even to confront each other. They found more than just an affinity! The rhythm and all its secrets, the sound and all its richness, the energy and all its nuances, they enjoy it, have fun with it, seriously, in total freedom.
Another day, in 2021, Didier creates a septet project, 'Silence was pleased' - Didier Lasserre, Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Gaël Mevel, Denis Cointe, Laurent Cerciat, Christine Wodrascka, Benjamin Bondonneau, Loïc Lachaize. Here, Didier creates a kind of itinerary made up of different encounters with very different colours: a beautiful poetic moment. A stop is planned at a bend in the road: Didier L and Ch W play as a duo. It's as good as it gets at any performance.
It was here that the duo of Didier Lasserre, drums, and Christine Wodrascka, piano, was born. The recording 'Lupercales 1' proves that this step was taken. Their true roots lie in free jazz. Complemented by contemporary music in all its forms. Together, behind their instruments, they like to surprise each other, support each other, confuse each other, contradict each other, let themselves float in the space of sound, gradually building a furrow, digging, insisting, repeating, playing with full or empty, silence or power, black or white.
An obvious duo in their genre.
lupercales /1
An invisible score, a sheet of blackened, perforated, striped graph paper,
a canvas of rhythms conceived by three in tight stitches,
a harmony of a single stroke, a pure sprint,
Christine Wodrascka & Didier Lasserre play out their presence in reality and the reality of their presence.
For free? Of course, they have paid their respects... to history, to what we call memory, and also to expectation.
But make no mistake: this is more than just a way out, it is about freedom.
Denis Cointe is currently working on a documentary about improvised music, in particular with Didier Lasserre and Christine Wodrascka.
It is being produced by the Atelier documentaire.
