Music
My Hero: Sébastien Tellier on Miles Davis
The French singer on why he thinks the jazz legend is the essence of cool.
Sébastien Tellier
© Ludovic Careeme
He’s played pleasurably with everything from synth pop to abstract cabaret, and his sixth album, L’Aventura is a bossa-imbued concept album inspired by Brazil. But for Sébastien Tellier, if you want to understand the essence of cool, you have to turn to American jazz.
Continuing our pretty self-explanatory series, the French singer and one-time Eurovision contestant tells us why, when it comes to musical and sartorial vision, legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis will always be The Man.
“For me, it is all about philosophy. Miles Davis is super interesting because he represents a whole vision of music. And through the notes, through the chord, he proposed his own philosophy of life. No! Not just a philosophy. A lifestyle. A way of living. And the message I feel through his notes and his chord is: Be far from the reality. Be close to the stars.
“Sometimes, to play well in front of the audience, he played with his back turned. He looked at the back of the theatre. And I know this – sometimes as a musician, when you play the best, it’s when you’re alone in your living room or in your studio. Then you can play with the pure feeling you have inside of you. And so Miles, I think he did this because he wanted to give the best of himself.
“I did not see Miles Davis play, I know this just through YouTube. When he did tour, I was too young to say ‘Hey cool!’ Jazz was too intellectual and too intense for me. I went to see Madonna, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses. I understood Miles Davis later, maybe around 30. I said to myself, ‘This guy is really something’ and step-by-step I watched more and more videos of him, and I decided, okay, this is it.”
Sébastien Tellier takes a break
© Philippe Lévy
“He is also my hero because he was the best-clothed musician by far. His clothes are perfect. You know, like, a very shiny top and super weird hair. Super-stylish guy.
“The New Sounds was the best album for me, because it was the first album. When a guy is dead and it is impossible for him to make more music, we can look back at all of his work. For me, it is always the most magical to listen again to the first record. It is like a vision. You can guess the future in the music.
“I play a lot of jazz myself. On my second album I did a jazz song and on my first album in a way there was a lot of jazz soul from the 70s, like Zappa.
“When I am at home, I love to play jazz because I love complicated chords. I have a lot of guitars and synths. I love to play jazz when I am alone, but just for pleasure, because… I don’t want to become a ‘jazz man’!
“Sometimes I am very sad that we forget the real jazz mind. In all the culture in Europe, and the big countries like the US, we forget this vision of music. Of course there are still jazz musicians all around the world. But jazz of today is not so cool as the jazz of Miles Davis.”
Miles Davis
© MilesDavis.com
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