Sebastien Paindestre composed jazz themes drawing his inspiration from life or from jazz standards: Video

06.07. – Happy Birthday !!! Pianist, composer, teacher and co-organizer of jazz concerts in Malakoff ( La Fabrica’son, France, near Paris). Member of Artists Recording Collective, jazz label (N.Y, Kansas City, U.S.A)

DEBUT: He started playing music rather late. Indeed he took his first piano lessons in 1988. Following the advice of Alain Béguin, percussionist and teacher (artistic co-director of the ‘Nuits des musiciens’), he joined the ENMD in Montreuil in 1990 and attended sylvie Irla and Olivier Chauzu’s classical piano lessons. He was then deeply touched by the beauty of musical pieces by Bach, Chopin, ravel and Debussy.

In this school he got acquainted with the saxophonist Jean-Claude Fohrenbach’s students and found jazz most appealing through them. The year after that he interrupted his classical studies and started learning jazz with this teacher and by listening carefully to the other students work. Among the students were David El Malek, Francois Homps, Alain Bugéli and Franck Oberson. At that time he met Antoine Paganotti. He put an end to his classical studies at the end of 1994 but eager to improve his art he joined Erik Berchot’s piano section from 2000 to 2003 at the academy of arts in Bagnolet.

Beside his work as a musician he was also a groupleader for children at Montreuil’s outdoor center from 1992 to 2000. There he created a musical section for children (Mini conservatoire Amadeus, 1994). During the same period he accompanied the dancers of the contemporary dance section of the school of arts in Montreuil and started teaching classical and jazz piano in Montreuil, Rosny-sous-Bois and Villemonble. As a teacher he took part in the creation of a jazz piano section at the academy of arts in Santeny ( near Paris) from 2003 to 2004 and he was also involved in the making/lauching of a Jazz festival in Normandy ‘La Mare au Jazz’ (Lignieres-Orgeres) from 1998 to 2003.

MUSICAL EXPERIENCE: Then came the time of musical maturity when he started playing on a regular basis with the jazz band called ‘The Now Blues Quartet’ with Franck Roger on alto saxophone, Jean-Claude Oleksiak on bass and Besnoit Raffin on drums. He played live with this band from 2000 to 2001 all over France and appeared on stage with this quartet up to 200 times within this period.

He was then introduced to the singer Cristine Combe and to the pianist Jacques labarriere by the drummer Jean-Louis Méchali. This meeting led to a fruitful collaboration with the singer and Eve Griliquez (who was playing an important role in the media area at the time and was also very efficient in discovering new talents ) in a show about Boris Vian ‘On n’est pas la pour se faire engueuler’ which went on at the ‘Tourtour’s theatre’ for six weeks and then all over france in 2000 and 2001.

In 2001, Sébastien Paindestre created his first Jazz project as a leader, artistic director and composer with the drummer Antoine Paganotti and the bass player Jean-Claude Oleksiak. He composed jazz themes drawing his inspiration from life or from jazz standards, some of which were original creations for the trio. As their live concerts appeared to be a success he naturally came to the idea of recording his compositions.