Les Primitifs du Futur

Can you be nostalgic for a place you've never been? This year's Globalfest will present several bands that re-create times and places that few, if anyone, in these parts ever experienced. In fact, the musicians themselves were never there. Still, they conjure up a spell strong enough to create a place you will want to visit again.

Dominic Cravic, a French guitarist playing jazz and rock in the 1980s, also loved bal-musette, a style born in poor Parisian districts in the 1880s that spread to the upper classes through the early 20th century. The musette dance halls swung to a variety of partner dances - waltzes, tangos, fox-trots.

Bal-musette, Cravic said, has the "perfume of a homemade music played for dance for ordinary people and some high-society members who liked to hang out with the 'milieu,' the hoodlums, pimps, et cetera."

In the 1960s, he said, "We had the arrival of our French version of pop rock 'n' roll, what they called Les Yeh Yeh. The musette style was considered corny - oldie but not goodie - and was swept away. It took 25 years before audiences turned their ears again to what could be considered their own roots."

In 1985, Cravic met a fellow nostalgist in Robert Crumb, the iconic American underground cartoonist, who also played mandolin and banjo and was a fan of old jazz and blues.

Crumb and Cravic hunted down 78 records and found like-minded musicians to create Les Primitifs du Futur. Now their 2000 album, "World Musette," is being released stateside by Sunnyside.

"We like to play some songs close to the way they were played, to keep that tradition alive, and we love that sound," Cravic said, "but what we prefer is writing new songs with a personal approach."

The Primitifs are reverent but not overly serious, swinging but always lovely - even Fay Lovsky's playing of the saw is hauntingly pretty despite its mild absurdity.
- NEWSDAY / Marty Lipp

Legendary underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and guitarist Dominique Cravic founded Les Primitifs du Futur in 1986 craving real Parisian musette instead of poor imitations heard in variety shows.
It sounds like they've stepped right out the '30s, the members of Les Primitifs du Futur brilliantly blend world-musette and Django-style guitar into old-fashion originals.
Last time you heard so much accordion, chances are that it was a polka and you were drunkenly foraging through your grandparents' old 78sl. Or maybe you were in New Orleans for a weekend of debauchery and zydeco.

But what the Parisian band Les Primitifs du Futur actually plays is "musette," a style developed in France at the turn of the century before exploding in Paris in the 1930s and '40s. Mixing popular folk dancing from Auvergne with swing, gypsy inflections, and polka, musette is by definition dance music. Even now, chances are that the orchestra at any popular ball on Bastille Day will play it along with a choice selection of tangos, pasos, and fox-trots.

The Primitifs' leader, guitarist Dominique Cravic, wrote most of the material and gathered a crack team of experts on such instruments as "the jazzo-flute" , "the xylophone", "the cabrette"or "the musical saw".
The band pays tribute to musette, mixing it up with as many dance styles as possible, leading to unholy dancefloor experiments ("Fox musette," "La java viennoise," "La valse chinoise") that call to mind a Parisian fantasy in which '40s-style gangsters hang out with gypsy bad boys.

With their three albums "Cocktail d'amour", "Trop de routes, trop de trains" et World Musette" made up of original compositions the Primitifs du Futur remain at the forefront of the renaissance of “chanson française” manifestly occurring in France today.

The group first came to public attention via its most famous member - the American cartoonist Robert Crumb. Even without him, they're definitely exciting.

Dominique Cravic : vocals, guitar
Fay Lovsky : vocals, Theramin, ukulélé, musical saw
Daniel Colin : accordion
Daniel Huck : scat, saxophones
Jean-Michel Davis : vibraphone, xylophone, drums
Claire Elzière : vocals

New Cd « Tribal Musette » (Universal Jazz, march 08)
www.myspace.com/lesprimitifsdufutur
US TOUR JULY 08 From 14TH To 23RD.
- Tempo Spectacle

Can you be nostalgic for a place you've never been? On January 21, the 2007 edition of Globalfest took place at Webster Hall in New York City, and hosted several bands that recreate times and places that few if anyone in these parts ever experienced. In fact, the musicians themselves were never there. Still, they conjure up a spell strong enough to create a place you'd really want to be.
One of the featured bands was Les Primitifs du Futur, led by guitarist Dominic Cravic. Cravic is a French musician who was playing jazz and rock in the 1980s, but also loved bal-musette, a style born in poor Parisian districts in the 1880s. It then spread to the upper classes through the early 20th century. At first, the bourgeousie would go to bal-musette dancehalls as a kind of "slumming," which the proprietors sometimes indulged by staging mock police raids. The musette dancehalls swung to a variety of partner dances - waltzes, tangos, fox trots, as well as the risque hands-on-butts java style.
The older music, Cravic said, was from an era before big media and industrialization. "It has a perfume of a homemade music played for dance for ordinary people and some high-society members who liked to hang out with the 'milieu' [in the dancehalls], the hoodlums, pimps, et cetera."
"It's sure that something has been lost," Cravid added, "but no one can tell if things can reappear again. I always give the example of Manouche or Gypsy style á la Django Reinhardt: fifteen years ago, you could count the Manouche guitar players on both hands - some genuine old guys playing in some little cafes at the flea market and a few gadges [standard French guitarists who loved the music]. Today, it's a huge worldwide craze with a lot of festivals, clubs, an enormous production of albums of Gypsy music."
In the 1960s, he said, "we had the arrival of our French version of pop rock 'n' roll: what they called Les Yeh Yeh. The musette style, like many other styles, was considered corny - oldie but not goodie - and was swept away. Added to that, accordion players - to resist the flood - started to play really corny. It took 25 years before audiences turned their ears again to what could be considered their own roots. And accordion is back again in the different French fields of music, even in rap or hiphop."
In 1985, he met a fellow nostalgist in Robert Crumb, the iconic American underground cartoonist who created the ubiquitous "Keep on Truckin'" poster and the character Mr. Natural. Crumb, who played mandolin and banjo, was a longtime fan of old jazz and blues.
Crumb and Cravic hunted down old 78s and found like-minded musicians to create Les Primitifs du Futur. They released an EP in 1986, then a full-length album in 1995. Now their 2000 album, World Musette, was reissued in North America in 2007.
"We like to play some songs close to the way they were played, to keep that tradition alive and we love that sound," Cravic said, "but what we prefer is writing new songs with a personal approach. It's like traveling through time. We love to create songs that present meetings of different cultures: an accordion player from Auvergne in the center of France playing along an Algerian oud player [as in] the song that gave its title to World Musette. Anyway, we think that there is more in common with the different musics of the world than differences."
The Primitifs are reverent without being too serious, swinging but always lovely; even Fay Lovsky's playing of the musical saw is hauntingly pretty despite its being a touch absurd, which might be a pretty good description of the band as a whole. - Marty Lipp
- Rootsworld / Marty Lipp

Digging in to That Antiquarian Funk
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: July 18, 2008
The French band Les Primitifs du Futur comes at you with a wink. To call its music cartoonish isn’t so misleading. It incorporates a saw and a theremin; several kinds of extinct romanticism involving the accordion; the sweet, high clank of a xylophone; and a stout alto saxophonist who plays as if he were born in 1900 and scat-sings with a bravado that spills over into comedy. The band was also co-founded 22 years ago by the American expatriate Robert Crumb, who sees the world as a cartoon.

Since the 1980s clever little bands around the world have used this kind of thing — accordions, antiquarian kitsch — sometimes masking middling talent. In the end it hardly matters; nearly any group that chooses to go down that road is destined to remain a curiosity. But Les Primitifs du Futur, who combine French musette with early jazz, chanson, Gypsy swing, polka and a few other elements, are extremely good. This gives them another dimension: modesty.

They’re on a brief American tour in support of a new record (“Tribal Musette,” on Sunnyside), playing folk-festival gigs and little club dates around the country. On Wednesday Les Primitifs, a quintet, came to Barbès, in Brooklyn, and before an audience of about 50, played a two-hour set of mostly original songs with a charm and propulsion and balance of sound that only comes from the most serious, well-practiced bands. The performance wasn’t slapstick or scholarship; it was lovely, and its best humor was a byproduct of good playing.

Dominique Cravic, the band’s de facto leader, strummed swing rhythms on acoustic guitar and sang in a light tenor. Fay Lovsky played a small electric bass and bowed a saw with accurate pitch. Claire Elzière sang chansons with the sweet pessimism that the style requires. Jean-Michel Davis alternated on xylophone, marimba and drums by swiveling among them. In one French ragtime song he finished off xylophone lines with a few tom-tom rumbles.

Daniel Huck, the saxophonist, played light, bunched-up lines redolent of jazz from the early 1930s, and brought its ancient disposition to life. (In a few songs, like “Scattin’ the Blues,” he sang with hyper-syncopation, slicing and dragging the beat.) And Daniel Colin, playing a chromatic button accordion, stayed in the background more than a virtuoso usually does; when he finally had his own unaccompanied solo piece, the waltz “Canal Saint-Martin,” deep with harmony, it was breathtaking.

There was a little outright humor too — a French version of “We’re in the Money” (“Passez la Monnaie”) in which Mr. Huck grew a little unruly with his scatting — and a theremin feature for Ms. Lovsky. Still, the music was performed with care and understanding; laughing was on option, but not the only possible response.
- New York Times

Accordions and Edith Piaf are more normally associatedwith musette than sitars and kotos. But les Primitifs du Futur are not your normal musette band. Guitarist Dominique Cravic's giddily post-modern take on the bittersweet French cabaret song is full of surprising world-music twists and jazzy inflections, but never loses touch with the music's soul. A revolving cast of singers and musicians (including underground cartoonist R. Crumb on mandolin and wacky cover illustration) bring the inspired Frank-Zappa-meets-Maurice-Chevalier whimsy to life using musical saw, darabukka, and marimba in addition to the traditional accordions, violins and guitars.
Singers set the sad, knowing tone on many of the tunes. On "Canal Saint-Martin," Allain Leprest growls like a wounded bear over a sweet and delicate arrangement, thereby creating a surprisingly touching contrast. Olivia Ruiz and Christophe sing an intimately rasped duet on the medley "Sur le Toit/Ramona" to the accompaniment of conventional musette augmented by eerie tones of organ and theremin.
Thanks to the boundlessly inventive arrangements of Bertrand Auger, the instrumental selections strike a similar balance between tradition and innovation, emotion and restraint, ironic humor and sincere malancholy. This is pure pleasure from beginning to end. - Jazziz - Ed Hazell