Voyages & Autres Histoires & Other Stories
GUY BÉLANGER
Disques BROS, 22301
Guy Bélanger who is on his seventh solo album in his career plus two soundtracks with Claude Fradette for the films of his brother Louis Bélanger, no longer needs a presentation.
As well as excelling on the harmonica, his companion on the road and on his travels, he excels as usual in the art of assembling an opus of instrumental and sung tracks, blues and songs with evocative, even cinematic, atmospheres
In the latter, he infuses his sensitive soul as an impressionist composer and unfolds from within! As for the instrumental Duck Soup of the American jazz guitarist Jim Hall, he treats himself freely exchanging the licks with the fabulous and reserved Rob McDonald, on the guitar!
What chemistry, what complicity and what support that allow him to breathe freely, with all sails set!
Bélanger also has the quality of knowing how to surround himself with musicians of great talent and handpicked special guests. Michel Dufour, drums, percussion and Marc-André Drouin, bass, elegantly and solidly complete the band. Among the other chosen accomplices, we highlight Sylvie Desgroseillers who covers, with energy and guts, Do I Move You, a must by Nina Simone.
Alec McElcheran contributes vocals and bass on his funky and danceable composition How Do You Do It. A spray of salt in the gumbo! Nieve (Snow) a luminous instrumental by guitarist Claude Fradette particularly resonates with me, as if it underlines the joyful side of the geometric white snowflake! Exquisite!
Guy Bélanger, warm harmonica and vocals, with impulses of the heart No One Else, this magnificent ballad of singer and composer Ian Janes from Nova Scotia. It fits him like a glove he knitted himself, like a heartfelt song that naturally suits him!
Of the three instrumental compositions by Guy Bélanger integrated among these selections of choice, The Sun Will Rise is the one I’m particularly fond of for its joy, its light from the depths, its resilience inhabiting the movement where red and black marry in the heralded fires of the day!
A beautiful introspection, like a hope for certainty! At the end of the way, a musical excerpt Fradette-Bélanger from the film Vivre à 100 miles à l’heure by Louis Bélanger, Guy’s brother, concludes this Voyages & Autres Histoires & Others Stories in the magnificent and full of soul choruses of Nanette Workman!
In closing, all I have to do is mention Bruce Cameron’s organic and ethereal contribution at the piano, the Rhodes and the B3 organ on two tracks of this refreshingly cleverly concocted anthology. From a circus instrument once despised, Guy Bélanger makes grandiose music burst forth! Enjoy!
