Beginning with clarinet (1st Prize from Music Conservatory of Vichy-France, where my brother Yves and Guy Touvron also studied), playing with Jazz records at home, I sat in my first jam sessions with pro musicians (Maxim Saury, Les Haricots Rouges) during my higher maths classes in Clermont-Ferrand, then I played traditional Jazz with the New-Orleans Snappers in Bordeaux during my Engineering studies, used to hang out at jam sessions and played concerts while completing my Engineering diploma in Paris, I contributed to the Jazzmen Tea combo in San Francisco, recording with them an LP album during my Master of Science at UC Berkeley, attended a new clarinet session as military service – but still swinging aside, like in Conflans – then, I spent several holiday periods with Club Med and some other giddy joints, I subsequently took up alto sax with Claude Tissendier and {†} Jean-Claude Fohrenbach at the starting CIM Jazz School (sax ensembles, big bands, impro), also with André Villéger, while learning with Master teacher Robert Pichaureau how to unveil my sound, I invested myself in SuperCinq, sax quintet, tackling to arrangements in the SuperSax vein.
From 1986 on I have given my children their music bath, I went on with my instrument technique with Michel Goldberg at ARPEJ Jazz school, played a few years with Jazz Gardé, Big Band (lead by Stéphane Grémaud, then by David Louis, (on arrangements from Frank Mantooth, Dave Wolpe, Lalo Shifrin, Matt Harris, Mark Taylor), kept my instruments alive during my 2001-2004 Montreal period.
From 2008 on, I’ve been jamming around, in and around Paris at various spots like L’Happy Jazz, Autour de Midi et Minuit, Michel Barbe & Co. à Vanves, L’écoutille, Le nouvô Cosmos with Martin Cazals…and I take part with L’Happy Jazz in Festival Jazz en Boucle, then Jazz en Ville at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, from which Pacific Four quartet took shape and played later on at La Chaloupe, and at Le Marcounet house boat in Paris.
…and taking advantage of stimulating Jazz summer camps, at Coaraze (CoartJazz 2021), in Jura mountains (Jazz On The Park 2022), and with CMDL– Didier Lockwood Jazz school (L’instrument et l’improvisation 2023).
