Olivier!

Olivier!'s unique style owes a lot to his reluctance to practice scales and arpeggios, his poor reading skills, his limited hand-eye co-ordination and sometimes his inability to tune up. Atmospheric conditions and luck occasionally allow for tuneful performances.Olivier! has played various instruments badly since youth. he was mainly known as a guitar strummer during his youth, singing 3-chord folk songs by the campfire without realising how funny American Folk sounds with a French accent - everyone had such an accent in his native France. He made his fingers pick the guitar in bluegrass fashion for a while, then he even moved to the 5-string American banjo, still singing from the song books of Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. His claim to fame at the time was to sing one song with his banjo on his knee, accompanied by his brother on voice and guitar, in front of a 1000-strong audience. The show, in honour of Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, was recorded for France Culture and even broadcast on this national French channel.Of course he also played badly the mouth organ (chromatic and blues), the recorders (descant, alto, tape) and the jaw’s harp as well as having 2 years of classical training on the clarinet.Olivier!'s greatest musical regret was to be taught the piano badly - by rote - and to be allowed/encouraged to drop the lessons as soon as homework pressure mounted up. In second position he regrets having started to play sax and to play sax in public far too late. He could have had a few decades of it instead of a few years.Delusion feeling better than disillusion, Olivier! likes to believe he's being asked to come back to jams not because the organisers ask everyone but because he plays well enough.Despite having left school and university a rather long time ago, Olivier! is still in his formative years concerning Jazz and saxophone playing. While it is true that skills and knowledge can always be improved, especially in a field like music, he feels he is still in the steep part of the learning curve - or rather hopes he is!Nevertheless, Olivier! has managed to befriend some real musicians and some real music students. He also manages the occasional soulful solo that makes it all worth it.