“We try to reach within free jazz the same sort of rhythmic cohesion as in bop… based not exactly on tempo, but something which feels like tempo. A kind of underlying pulse.”
This is Dharma’s first LP: from the same neck of the woods as the Cohelmec Ensemble, a mixture of spiritual jazz, free jazz and electric Miles — especially for its keyboards — infused by the anti-authoritarian politics of collectivism and anti-hierarchism.
Saxophonists Jef Sicard and Gérard Coppéré are moonlighting from Claude Delcloo’s Full Moon Ensemble.

Their second LP, released three months after Mr. Robinson in 1970.
Funky jazz-rock — tight, direct, restless. Pianist Patricio Villarroel lays on the Corea / Jarrett vibes; alongside bassist Michel Gladieux and drummer Jacques Mahieux.

‘Winding operations down after End Starting, Archipel is likewise planned-out music, mixing free rock and European free jazz in a series of collective explosions based on abrupt and contrasting improvisations. For much of the time, piano, guitar and saxophone intertwine over intense rhythms. Everything is electric, with the density of On The Corner, and flashes of viciousness all its own.
‘Along with the Cohelmec Ensemble, the Workshop de Lyon, the Full Moon Ensemble, Perception, Armonicord or the Michel Portal Unit, the Dharma Quintet stands out as one of the most important examples of free jazz as it was played in France at the beginning of the 1970s.’

The guitarist’s debut album, inspired by a road trip through Brazil, taking in a Sun City Girls show in a remote former gay club, and a visit to a spiritual healer. He leads upright bass, drums, vibraphone, saxophone and percussion.

‘I decided that I would try to forge, in my own way, from my references, from my universe and from the collective intelligence and sensibility that surrounded me, fundamental melodies, repetitive, minimal, hypnotic rhythmic and harmonic patterns that would be crossed by some sort of improvisation, something that referred to a reality that existed before my individual history, that linked to the life of other places and other times.’

‘unique and beguiling…evocative and profound… music of rare depth’ (The Wire).
‘taps into the common ground between meditative, ambient and trance musics… delightful’
(Chris May, All About Jazz).