Henri Roger

condition (record/cover): VG+ (some surface noise and occasional click) / VG+ (light wear)

The debut LP by the French pianist and composer Henri Roger, self-released in 1982 in a small private pressing (catalog 8206) before any of his later work for Facing You, Instant Musics Records and various French independent labels. Energies Douces is a solo piano record: forty minutes of unaccompanied Roger at a single concert grand, no overdubs, no other instruments, no electronics.

The compositional language draws on the lineage of Erik Satie, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and the wider tradition of European solo-piano improvisation, but with a strong individual voice. The pieces sit somewhere between through-composed miniatures and structured improvisation, with frequent long silences punctuating the lines. Roger had been listening attentively to fifteen years' worth of jazz and contemporary classical recordings before recording this album, and the music carries that breadth: passages that recall Satie's Gymnopédies sit next to more harmonically adventurous material reminiscent of post-bop modal jazz, with occasional moments closer to the European ECM sensibility (Paul Bley, the early solo Jarrett recordings).

The original vintage private French pressing, catalogued 8206, in a small first edition that has long been out of print. Energies Douces was followed by Rythmigration (1983, also solo piano) and later by an extensive catalog of duo, trio and quartet records with Catherine Ribeiro, Paul Rogers, Noël Akchoté, Barre Phillips and others.