The Prone Gunman – Jean-Patrick Manchette

A new audio book based on an original music by Gilles Dimanche is released on November 9, 2010 at Gallimard-Jeunesse.

The Prone Gunman shooter, cult polar of the writer Jean-Patrick Manchette, is readen by Éric Elmosnino. The original music that accompanies the reader draws on inspirations as diverse as chamber music, jazz, opera or Irish music. Back on the composition of a small thirty musical excerpts sailing around a dozen themes …

Excerpts below circulated with the kind permission of Gallimard.

Jean-Patrick Cuff, a writer, saxophonist, was also a music enthusiast who did not hesitate to quote precisely in his novels his musical references when he wanted to illustrate a scene or suggest the character of his characters. This is how Martin Terrier, the hero of the
Position of the lying shooter is an unconditional of Maria Callas, while other protagonists of the book mention their taste for such or such jazz.

In my compositions, it seemed natural to pay homage to this dimension of the book. Musical quotes or allusions to the themes mentioned will therefore respond in counterpoint to the ubiquity of the music in the descriptions. My conversations with Doug headline, (Son of Jean-Patrick cuff), have strengthened me in this direction.

For the same reason, the choice of use of the saxophone has been imposed, as well as the references to jazz saxophonists are numerous (Arshee Shepp, Ben Webster, Antony Braxton, Lee Konitz, Marion Brown, Chico Freeman, Charlie Parker, …)! In this project, it is Philippe Lacrouzade who will juggle at my request with his various saxophones to respect this inheritance. Other sources of inspiration will come from descriptions of places or spaces. I illustrate the use of this material in my approach in the detail below for a few themes.

• When the girl and death seduce the Jazzmen

This Schubert quartet is quoted in the soundscape that Martin Terrier crosses in Paris. I chose to take up the theme of the Andante con moto after a tragic event occurring at the end of a chapter, so as to remind the listener a few pages later this description.

The interest was not here to quote Schubert in a literal way, but to integrate the girl’s theme and death into the overall aesthetic. It is therefore an arrangement of this theme for saxophone trio (1 tenor, 2 violas), clarinet quartet (3 Sib, 1 bass) and rhythmic section. The result is obtained by successive recording of saxophone parts (all recorded by Philippe) and clarinets (there, I am the one who sticks to it).

The jazz harmonies replace the Schubert chords, the wooden stamps replace the strings, a double bass reproduces the bass line originally played on the cello. To reinforce this transposition of Schubert in another style and to bring a contrast to the initial vertical writing, a saxophone improvisation is added and evolves freely throughout this theme.

We will find this theme as a nagging and conclusive complaint in the last chapters.

Excerpts: The Girl and the death
-Original version by the Alban Berg Quartet
-A new approach by Gilles Sunday

• Music for Pop Art, Op and kinetics …

One of the places represented in the narrative evokes an apartment decorated with works of art of various movements of the years 60.

I chose to punctuate this graphic universe of saxophonistiques noises rearranged from sounds interpreted by Philippe Lacrouzade and electro-acoustic crushing.

Starting from the recording of Éric Elmosnino, I distributed and placed various illustrations under the breaths, between the sentences, the objective being to suggest this atmosphere by frequent sounds, but spread along the speech. In this way, the voice/music balance is preserved, as well as the intelligibility of the speech.

Extract-Pop, Op & Kinetics-music alone without voice

• Irish Wind

To respect the elliptical form of the narrative referring to Ireland, I wanted to create a theme that would be interpreted indifferently by Irish musical instruments and by a jazz formation. The change of style is based on this structure, but for both types of interpretation, there is a harmonic and tempo identical setting. So Philip had to accommodate the tonality of the Irish instruments on an instrument that does not lend itself much … But lent himself to the game for a nice result! The theme therefore comes in different forms during the narrative, in coherence with this one.

The constraints I have imposed on this theme provide continuity and sound homogeneity on very different extracts. They have allowed me to naturally integrate a foreign style with the general sound identity of this audio book.

Experimental and didactic Montage of excerpts from the two themes placed alternating. The passages from one extract to the other are separated by “Strchdut”.
This extract is illustrative from the common structure; In reality, several tens of minutes separate them.

I stop here the descriptions to let you discover the other surprises of this realization, in particular the superb interpretation of Éric Elmosino, the comedian! I hope you will have as much fun to (re) discover this illustrated polar of my compositions as I have had to work on this project. A big thank you to Joëlle, Philippe, Doug, Éric and Jean-Christophe for this success.