Jérôme Langlois: Live au FMPM 2006 / Jerome Langlois: Live au FMPM 2006

In 2005, Maneige founder Jérôme Langlois released his first album in decades, Molignak, on the ProgQuébec label. A year later, he was on the bill for the ProgQuébec co-sponsored progressive music festival FMPM (or Festival des Musiques Progressives de Montréal). For this come-back to live music, Langlois put together a very strong band: the musicians who had worked on Molignak (violinist and ex-Conventum Bernard Cormier, famous session bassist and ex-Octobre Mario Légaré, Maneige drummer Gilles Schetagne, and Langlois' daughter on clarinet), plus Orchestre Sympathique flutist/pianist François Richard and Maneige percussionist Paul Picard. The instrumentation is similar to early Maneige, and so was the feel of the evening, even though very little material from that band was performed. Obviously, the concert featured a good chunk of Molignak, here given a livelier interpretation, especially in the opening "Le Cri 1/Arrivée." "Le Rafiot Rafistolé" is a ten-minute reworking of Maneige's early classic epic "Le Rafiot," while "La Chanson des Îles" is actually an instrumental version of "La Chanson de l'Oiseau des Îles," which was part of the 1976 live production Le Spectacle de l'Albatros. Old tunes or new tunes, the music all follows a similar vein (i.e. mellow instrumental chamber prog). The group delivers a spirited performance, and one can only hope Langlois keeps on writing for this particular ensemble. To this performance (and two tunes from the Molignak release party performance) on disc one, ProgQuébec has added the complete reissue of Langlois' 1984 Thèmes LP on disc two. Thèmes is a solo piano album recorded in a concert hall, on a Steinway grand piano. Here, Langlois revisits themes from his days with Maneige ("Le Rafiot" and "La Chanson des Îles," again, but also "La Balloune") and performs pieces that would later become part of Molignak ("Last Tango en Molinie"). ~ François Couture, Rovi