HARMONICA DAYS : Laurent Maur • TOOTS LEGACY

You don't come across a jazz harmonicist on every street corner, but when you find a good one, you hold on tight! Laurent Maur belongs to that lineage that carries on the legacy of the unforgettable Toots Thielemans, and he does so with tremendous class. His journey? Not quite what you would expect: years spent playing in the Parisian metro before catching the jazz bug, enrolling at the CIM, and then winning the Trossingen International Competition. After a detour via the CMDL and several years spent in Asia, he returned in 2016 with a style all his own. Following an album paying tribute to French jazz — Biréli Lagrène, Eddy Louiss, Richard Galliano — he now takes on a more international repertoire: Tom Jobim, Donald Harrison, Larry Goldings. But rest assured, the Frenchy touch is never far away, between a brilliantly reimagined "Javanaise" and the famous waltz "Indifférence" by Tony Murena, which you would swear was written for the chromatic harmonica. And to carry all this, Laurent Maur surrounds himself with a first-rate ensemble: Mario Canonge in top form at the helm of a rock-solid rhythm section — Felipe Cabrera on double bass, Pierre-Alain Tocanier on drums. An unmissable event for aficionados of the genre, and a wonderful surprise for everyone else.