recorded live at Cafe Revolution on Sunday 11/10/13
adapted by Paul Bertin and La Pêche from Amsterdam Klezmer Band's Elfje on their album "Katakofti"

Paul Bertin - Saxophone
Morgan Nilsen - Clarinet
Ofir Uziel - Accordion
Andrew Cohen - Helicon
JonJon Selin - Drums

Elfje

This is a part of the Soundtrack I wrote with La Pêche for George Méliès's awesome 1904 movie "voyage à travers l'impossible".

This theme is played when the explorers finally land on the Sun, but realize that the scorching heat is unbearable ; they decide to use their Glacier Box but end up freezing. Thanks to Mabouloff's ingenuity, they thaw and manage to escape ! 

watch the full movie (with our original soundtrack) here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pll3zftl5wg

download individual tracks here :
https://lapeche.bandcamp.com/album/journey-through-the-impossible


Paul Bertin - Saxophone and Composition
Morgan Nilsen - Clarinet
Ofir Uziel - Accordion
JonJon Selin - Drums
Schuyler Karr - Upright Bass
Dan Cantrell - Celeste, Glockenspiel & other whimsical sound effects


Sun Funk

This is a part of the Soundtrack I wrote with La Pêche for George Méliès's awesome 1904 movie "voyage à travers l'impossible".

This theme is played when the intrepid explorers find themselves in a tiny submarine, which happens to explode and project them all the way onto the shores.

watch the full movie (with our original soundtrack) here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pll3zftl5wg

download individual tracks here :
https://lapeche.bandcamp.com/album/journey-through-the-impossible


Paul Bertin - Saxophone and Composition
Morgan Nilsen - Clarinet
Ofir Uziel - Accordion
JonJon Selin - Drums
Schuyler Karr - Upright Bass
Dan Cantrell - Celeste, Glockenspiel & other whimsical sound effects

Underwater Theme Song

Recorded live on 01/25/15  at the Freight&Salvage coffeehouse in Berkeley, CA as part of Madeline Tasquin's performance. 

Paul Bertin - Alto Saxophone & composition
Madeline Tasquin - Piano and vocals
Bradford Tidwell - Electric Bass
Amir Oosman - Drums

Martes

Sunday. We are planning to do a march with a brass band as a part of MAPP ( http://www.mappsf.com )on sat. april 4th, in homage to Alex Nieto and Almicar Perez-Lopez, SF residents who were victims of police brutality.   
While  writing the previous tune, I thought of dedicating them the next piece, as a way to channel my inspiration for a cause that deeply affects me. 

I stood in the sun in my garden and focused my thoughts and energy on the indignation I felt towards this injustice. I started whistling a melody, played with it and later interpreted it on the sax. I tried to stay close to the emotion I was feeling and inject it as much as I could into the melody. Having a format (balkan brass band marching in the mission) and a cause greatly helped me to stay focused on a particular mood. I felt very emotional right after recording my saxophone parts ; I tracked the bass and used some samples from Boban Markovic later that night. 

Dia Del Sol

Saturday. I was kind of hitting a wall that day; I tried to do it right tough, woke up early, played saxophone most of the day, but no concrete idea would form. I could only play a constant stream of notes with no  shape. I didn't panic, but was starting to wonder if Saturday was going to be my one day-with-no-song.. 
I went out for a mad bicycle delivery session (my side job) through the streets of SF. The energy was particularly wild in the city that night. I then got home around 9:30pm, made some food and I soon as my plate was empty I thought of making a funky bassline in 9/8 over a straight beat so it would take two measures to cycle. From that idea I wrote the whole thing in Logic. It morphed into an odd Fela Kuti reference, to which I would have loved to add a full horn section if only my neighbors would have been ok with that...

SahmDee

Friday. After the Theriantrope concert thursday night, followed by a cool party and a jam session, followed by an awesome breakfast at my friend Rebecca's, I was feeling quite refreshed, inspired and happy like a monkey. Rebecca let me borrow one of her Ney, which is a Turkish reed flute that is blown in a particular way to give it a breathy tone. It is used a lot in sufi music. I had one for a while but this new one is a lot more resonant and awesome so I played it on my way back to SF, in my car,  in the streets, then with my friend Ofir.  By the time I made it back home I had a full melody ready. 
The beat is in 3/4, it is inspired by a Sufi rhythm for Daf called Maddahi. I spent more time on the production and even played bass. 

Freedom (midnight Dub Mix)

Thursday. Props to you if you get the franco-english pun in the title. 
That day was not easy, I just didn't know where to start and was getting a little frustrated. Back to the basics, I started jamming some arpeggios on my horn, in 7/8 time which seems to always provide me with a nice framework for making up stuff. I was a little distressed though while writing the melody, because they were so many options and I was running out of time (had a gig that night with Theriantrope again). I kept running the lines on my sax to develop them, then recorded them on my phone, then transcribed them onto my notation software, then recorded the whole thing onto logic. 
I wished I had a little more time to actually practice what I had written, the performance is below my standards but hey that's also part of the challenge. Funnily, it was harder to play the song from a chart than from memory, but I just couldn't remember the whole thing so I had to write it down. 

And The Game Says

Wednesday. I was pretty busy this day and didn't get to writing until later in the afternoon. While writing on Tuesday, I already knew that I wanted to call wednesday's song Mercury and that it would have a bunch of chords with funny progressions. 
So I sat at the piano and played with chords movement until I found something interesting enough. I have a very limited set of rhythms I can play on the keys and the 2/4 "oom -chak" is one of them :)
Later that night I entered the chords in logic, then recorded the melodica and whistling over it. It was already late at night and I'm not sure the upstairs neighbors would have been as stoked as me to hear me to hear some saxophone on this track. 

Mercury

Tuesday. Now I'm really getting closer to the real challenge ; there's many other things that I could do today but I make the time (woke up very early - 9am) to write a song. Not too sure where to go at first, I light up a stick of Palo Santo and immediately start singing the bass line, with a conviction that lets me know this will be the song of the day. It's a pretty simple line and beat (yes, I did pull out the djembe on this one, that the only drum readily available...) but enough to spark three sax lines. I spent more time on the production for this one, to help underline the ideas and give a little depth to the arrangement. In retrospect, I could have tweaked that funky drum sample to match the groove I had developed instead of just throwing it in there. 

Tiwsday

Monday ! I wrote this after I came back from an amazing gig with my friends Theriantrope (http://therianthropeband.com/ )in Big Sur. The road trip, powerful nature, incredible music and the overall fantastic time I had over there pumped me up to the point of setting this challenge for myself ! When you're inspired it feels so easy... 
I developed the melody on the saxophone first, recording one section on my phone then developing the next, then recording it, etc. I try to stay away from the computer as much as I can when composing since i feel the more genuine stuff comes when I'm playing an instrument, or even better singing.
The very simple beat is built around a sample of the arabic Maqsum rhythm on an Amsterdam Klezmer Band recording. The bass and keys were made in Logic.

Lundy

Saxophonist, Composer and Sound designer Based in the San Francisco Bay Area
<a href="http://www.paulbertin.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.paulbertin.com</a>


Paul Bertin

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