Over to Lausanne, Switzerland this week for a set by the Francois Lana Trio, recorded this past September at the Festival de Jazz Once de l’Octogone in Lausanne.

I Freely admit I’m not that familiar with Francois Lana, but what I’ve heard gives me further hope Jazz is way far from being an abandoned genre and it’s alive and kicking all over the world. I do wish, however, that America would get with the program and start exposing new homegrown talent by way of at least streaming, since we’ve relegated radio to exile on some remote island.

Thanks to RTS in Lausanne we’re able to drop in and check out the latest goings on and this example from just a few weeks ago is welcome.

Relatively new to the scene (being born in 1986 and all), Francois Lana has released his debut album, Cathèdrale to good reviews, noting his sound and approach are a mixture of several aspects of Jazz; free-form, bop, traditional and put together what many reviews have called a “transcendental journey”. Lana himself has considered his approach as a spiritual one.

From his Bandcamp page:

“François Lana is an uncompromising artist. Recognized above all as a brilliant and inventive pianist, his conception of music led him to a totalizing vision of his practice as an instrumentalist, composer and improviser. His playing, inspired from start to finish, is like a second voice that tells, discusses, jokes, prophesies. Seldom will he be caught losing himself in vain chatter”.

Have a listen and see what you think. It’s Sunday after all.

Tis the season – Thanksgiving, quickly followed by Christmas – quickly followed by New Years Eve. Long enough for you to wonder where the time, let alone the year, went. Yep, it’s moving fast and it’s moving crazy.
And you just want things to calm down – take it easy – not be so loud – not feel jostled all the time.
Not sure Past Daily can offer that every day, but we try. If you’ve been around the past few weeks you noticed we made some changes. Not running concerts and sessions at night anymore. We figured you probably wanted to get to sleep and having your ears glued to something high-voltage is probably not conducive to some much needed nods. So we shifted the concerts to the morning, where you are probably staggering out of bed or on your way to work or hitting the gym. It seems to be working, as a lot of you have discovered us (after all these years) – and nighttime is heading off into the gentle direction. Interviews – history that doesn’t blow up or land into hysterics. We’re tinkering with the idea of putting up some ASMR to actually help you sleep, but that might be pushing things a bit far.
In any event, we’re here – Past Daily is trudging along and we’re always looking for your help and encouragement to keep us up and going. Costs even more now than it did this time last year. But we’re still offering you the best of what’s in the archive – yes, this is all from our Collection (except the sessions and concerts – gotta give credit where credit is due – BBC 6 Music and Radio X in London and RNE In Madrid are essential sources of finding new music) but everything is the result of yours truly digging into boxes, climbing over shelves, falling into dumpsters. It’s history, it’s important and it’s yours if you want it. All you have to do, if you’re up for it, is subscribe via Patreon (that little box at the bottom of this post) – click on it and you’ll be taken to their site where you can subscribe to Past Daily, let them know how much you want to donate – or check us out for free, test drive our site as it were and decide to become part of the Past Daily experience. Simple, painless and we’ll love you for it. Do it if you can and you’ll be able to download your own copy of all our posts and new ones as they appear. Kind of cool, don’t you think? But you have to become a Patron in order to do it. Think about it – no pressure – honest – really . . no pressure. But there is that landlord . . . .