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Rebellion(s) is a brand new project of two outstanding reed-players - Sylvain Rifflet from France and Jon Irabagon from the US. Their program is inspired by those revolts, rebellions, revolutions and freedom-fights which marked the path of both nations leading to democracy - from a musical point of view. While in France most of the music written in revolt periods were songs, protest songs or hymns, in the United States jazz musicians have always been involved in composing music for and about rebellions, especially during the long fight for civil rights. It's enough just to mention John Coltrane's Alabama, or the music by Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders and many others...
Sylvain and Jon have researched music penned during or after riots and revolutions, compositions written about or inspired by them. They think that the link between rebellion and music still exists: composition and improvisation, using new forms and taking new aspects, are proper ways to express any kind of revolt. Using themes from their research and composing entirely new ones, they built a set of pieces which they started to work on with two further key figures of the French and US jazz scene: Jim Black on drums and Sébastien Boisseau on double bass. The result is a complex music melting influences of jazz, free jazz, repetitive and minimalist music through fluent improvisation.

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A principled program with which to say 'good riddance' to the Trump Era, Rebellion(s) melds profound improvisations with spoken word segments expressing social concerns. Organized by French tenor saxophonist who composed most of the music, the Franco-American quartet includes Rifflet who has played with Barry Altschul among many others; Gallic bassist Sébastien Boisseau who has partnered Sylvaine Hélary plus Americans, drummer Jim Black, known for his stint with Tim Berne and sopranino saxophonist Jon Irabagon who has been an innovative musical presence over the past decade. The most outstanding tracks are 'Jean Moulin' and 'Paul Robeson', which operate as reverse onomatopoeia, that complement the cadences and emotion of speeches given by French Gaullist politician André Malraux heard on the first tune and the left-wing American singer/actor on the second. Sometimes harmonized, the saxophonists' squeezed split tone and reed smears decorate and extend 'Jean Moulin' mirroring every modulation and warble in the voice. On 'Paul Robeson', Irabagon's response to the recitation is a smooth and supple solo that when joined by Rifflet's blowing becomes tougher and more concentrated as Robeson's words become more heated. Other interpretations may not be as powerful, although when backing the voice of a teenaged anti-NRA, school shooting survivor, on 'The Adults in the Room' the reed vibrations and bites plus stentorian double bass pulse echo with the same intensity as the speech. With triple tonguing and sharpened scoops the saxophonists offer sophisticated comments on other instrumental sequences and entire tunes. Black's tick-tock drumming provides the proper relaxed and sometimes martial backing throughout, while stepping forward on the final two tracks Boisseau's spidery strokes or col legno prodding adds to the admirable performance. Although recorded a full year before Trump was shuffled out of office Rebellion(s) provide a musical soundtrack to the many social problems brought to a boil during that unfortunate presidency. Hopefully in future this capital set will just be heard for its high quality music and not as a portend of further troubles yet to come.

     —Ken Waxman, jazzword.com (CAN)

Sylvain Rifflet plays tenor sax, Jon Irabagon blows into the sopranino and mezzo-soprano saxes, Sebastien Boisseau holds things down on the bass and the pulse is driven by drummer Jim Black on this 7 song collection of mostly originals. Visionary, or ...?

     —George Harris, jazzweekly.com (USA)