Unis Vers...

Historic musical instruments, however rare, demand to be played. That’s the thinking behind Stradivari, the vast collection housed at the Musée de la Musique in Paris. Mathias Lévy and a quartet of fine fellow musicians, including Stéphane Grappelli’s bassist Jean-Philippe Viret, honour the memory of the legendary Hot Club de France with help from the museum’s Pierre Hel violin, made in 1924 and later owned by Grappelli. Lévy’s original compositions and a closing gem by guitarist Sébastien Giniaux open doors to a lost world of cabaret and café concerts while offering fresh, notably lyrical contemporary takes on jazz violin. The title-track, Unis vers, grows from delicate rhythmic pulses to become a ritualistic dance, the momentum of which flows through Extatique and dissolves in the unsettling disintegration of Thelonious.