(Contemporary Jazz, Ethnic Jazz) Didier Malherbe & Eric Lohrer - Nuit D'Ombrelle - 2011, MP3, 320 kbps

Didier Antonin Malherbe (born January 22, 1943 in Paris, France[1]) is a saxophonist, flautist and duduk player. He was one of the founders of the Canterbury sound band Gong.
In Paris in May 1968 he met Australian singer, guitarist, poet and ex-Soft Machine member Daevid Allen, with whom he was to start Gong, an international community band incubated in Deya, Majorca, that toured France and Europe before appearing on the British scene starting at the first Glastonbury festival in June 1971.
Virgin Records signed them in 1973, and their album Camembert Électrique appeared in the charts. Gong toured extensively around the UK and Europe while producing the albums of their "Radio Gnome trilogy": Flying Teapot, Angel's Egg and You. Malherbe was often billed as "Bloomdido Bad de Grass". In 1975, when Allen left Gong, Malherbe along with Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Pierre Moerlen, Miquette Giraudy as Gong recorded 1975's Shamal. Hillage and Giraudy departed soon after. 1976's Gazeuse! featured Alan Holdsworth and Mino Cinelu in their place. Mike Howlett departed after the recording of that album.
Malherbe's turn to leave Gong came in 1978, when they changed their name to Pierre Moerlen's Gong. Back in France, he put together his five-piece Bloom band; in 1980 he released an album on EMI which was rather jazz-rock in style. The most significant change of 'shape' came in 1994 with the start of his association with multi-instrumentalist Loy Ehrlich, and percussionist Steve Shehan performing his own brand of wind-led, acoustic ethnic-jazz. Under the name Hadouk Trio the band has toured and played with many artists in Europe, while Malherbe himself has continued to perform individually and with other artists (particullary Brigitte Fontaine and guitarist Pierre Bensusan) in Japan and the U.S. In 2006 Hadouk released an album with pioneer American trumpeter Jon Hassell, Utopie.
Malherbe and Daevid Allen began collaborating again with Gongmaison in 1989, which eventually began performing and recording again under the name Gong on the studio albums Shapeshifter (1992), Zero to Infinity (2001), and 2032 (2009) after rejoining with various members of the classic line-up, including Gilli Smyth and Mike Howlett, among others. Malherbe has also joined them on various tours, and has appeared with Gong and Hadouk at all Gong Family Unconventional Gatherings in 2004 and 2005 at the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms, and 2006 at the Melkweg in Amsterdam, at which Gong's set was filmed and released as a DVD.
Eric Löhrer. Guitarist and composer. Born 1965.
A self-taught man, Eric Löhrer’s musical career debuted during his studies of philosophy. By the age of 23 he had recorded his first disc in a trio, upon which reviews heaped immediate praise.
He then found himself deeply involved in numerous jazz projects, first with his groups The Eric Löhrer Trio and Open Air, and then in collaboration with such musicians as Jean-Michel Pilc, Eric Lelann, Andy Emler, Eric Barret, Edouard Ferlet and Julien Lourau. Eric also went solo in 1998 with an acoustical tribute to Thelonious Monk entitled "évidence".
Löhrer’s journey has been marked by many noteworthy incursions into other musical domains. There is rock ‘n’ roll with the band Superphenix, pop with Jeanne Cherhal, Alain Chamfort, Steve Nieve. He does soul with Almo, world music with Rokia Traore, Ibrahim Maalouf, Geoffrey Oryema, Mama Ohandja, l’Orchestre National de Barbès, Diogal... and contemporary music with l’Ensemble l’Itinéraire; he’s even recorded with the unclassifiable group Olympic Gramophon.
Eric Löhrer’s newest project, in quartet, is devoted to his return to the jazz scene, beginning with his involvement in Fire and Forget / vs Rumbabierta by Julien Lourau (3 albums, tours in France and overseas). This new quartet has released an album : "Sélène Song", in 2008.

Interview Didier Malherbe By Allston Mitchell, September 15, 2011
- What about Nuit D’Ombrelle?
This is an album I recorded with the jazz guitarist Eric Lohrer. I particularly wanted to add a guitar
as that was the sound I was looking for so I started working with Eric who is a very good jazz guitarist.
He had previously made a CD of Thelonious Monk covers as well as a few solo albums, including one called “Evidence”
which is the name of a song by Thelonious Monk. The idea was to reproduce what we actually do on stage –
which is to combine improvisation with some older jazz standards. We often give little surprises when we are on
stage by playing something quite well known and then following it with some improvisation but we thought this would
be too much zig-zagging between styles, which might be tiring for the listener. For that reason we have one CD
of standards and one CD for the improvisation.
- I see that you even moved into a bit of blues with your cover of “St James Infirmary”
Yes. The St James Infirmary ballad is mixed up with an 18th century Armenian tune. It is called Eshkhemet.
The strange thing is that these two songs start the same way so we made this into a hybrid tune.

Duduk, Soprano Saxophone – Didier Malherbe
Guitar – Éric Löhrer
Written-By – D. Malherbe (tracks: 2-1 to 2-5, 2-7 to 2-9), É. Löhrer (tracks: 2-1 to 2-9)