About

Both an improviser, composer and explorer of world music, Manuel Hermia also gives free rein to his voice as a saxophonist and to his love for the bansuri. Alongside his studies in saxophone and jazz harmony at the Conservatoire, he has developed a mastery of the bansuri – the flute of North India. Besides, he has extended his knowledge of Indian and Arab music including ragas and maqams in a global thinking of music. More broadly, he gradually integrates into his musical language all the cultural elements that his journey invites him to explore. He has also developed his own melodic-harmonic system with his theory called “Rajazz”, thus building a bridge between jazz and ragas – in other words, between a tonal and a modal conception of music.

Manuel Hermia has simultaneously developed personal projects in several directions :

• In contemporary jazz with Manuel Hermia Trio (Long Tales and Short Stories, Igloo 2010, Octave Award for best jazz group in 2011) together with the highly adventurous Joao Lobo (drums) and Manolo Cabras (double bass).

• Also with the trio Hermia/Ceccaldi/Darrifourcq, an “unidentified object” on the jazz landscape. This trio, with Sylvain Darrifourcq on drums and Valentin Ceccaldi on cello, proposes a jazz that is at once very accessible yet uncompromising.

• At the crossroads of genres, with the group Slang (Los Locos, Save the Chilis, It’s on the Way, Karmasutra), offering an ethno-Coltranean rock sound with long-time companions Michel Seba on percussion and François Garny on bass.

• From a more world-oriented perspective, and exclusively on the bansuri, with Le Murmure de l’Orient (vol. 1 in 2005 and vol. 2 in 2012, Igloo and Cristal/Harmonia Mundi).

• Manuel Hermia also currently performs within the Majid Bekkas Afro Oriental Trio (Al Qantara, Igloo Mondo, 2014), a project that is not his own but which remains very important to him.

On the European jazz scene, he has also played with Eric Vermeulen, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse, Bruno Castellucci, Sam Gertsmans, Jean-Paul Estiévenart, Lieven Venken, Salvatore La Rocca, Sylvain Romano, as well as alongside Pierre Van Dormael, Julien Tassin, Julien Herne, Kari Ikonen, Omri Mor, Marcin Oles, Nono Garcia, Ramon Lopez, Jean-Pierre Froidebise, Maxime Blésin, Cédric Raymond, Greg Houben, Julien Charley, Emmanuel Duprey, and many others.

He has also collaborated with a wide range of artists from diverse cultures: Majid Bekkas (oud and guembri, Morocco), Mamady Keita (djembe, Guinea), Purbayan Chatterjee (sitar, India), Dhruba Ghosh (sarangi, India), Manou Gallo (bass, Ivory Coast), Guo Gan (erhu, China), Regis Gizavo (accordion, Madagascar), Mokoomba (Zimbabwe), Ben Ngabo (Rwanda), Joao Braga (Brazil), Dobet Gnahoré (vocals, Ivory Coast), Cumali Bulduk (Turkey), Mawaran (vocals, Lebanon), Yacir Rami (oud, Morocco)…

Finally, he has appeared as a guest with artists from many other horizons such as Fred Wesley, Zap Mama, Didier Laloy, Karim Baggili, Salvatore Adamo, Sttellla, William Sheller, Khadja Nin, Dick Annegarn, Clarika, The Guilty Brothers Experience, Oxymore…