Bernard Vitet (26 May 1934 – 3 July 2013) was a French trumpeter, multi-instrumentist and composer, co-founder of the first

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

band in France (1964) together with

François Tusques François Tusques (born January 27, 1938 in Paris, France) is a French jazz pianist. Tusques played a significant role in the emergence of a community of free jazz musicians in France. Discography * ''Free Jazz'', with Bernard Vitet, Beb Guér ...

, Michel Portal Unit (1972) and Un Drame Musical Instantané with

Jean-Jacques Birgé Jean-Jacques Birgé (born 5 November 1952) is an independent French musician and filmmaker, at once music composer (co-founder of Un Drame Musical Instantané with which he records about 30 albums, as well as for movies, theater, dance, radio), f ...

and Francis Gorgé in 1976. Born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, France, Vitet was involved in the early fusion of jazz and contemporary music with Bernard Parmegiani and Jean-Louis Chautemps. In the 1960s, he accompanied singers such as Serge Gainsbourg, Barbara,

Yves Montand Ivo Livi (), better known as Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer. Early life Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer, Ivo held stron ...

Claude François Claude Antoine Marie François (; 1 February 1939 – 11 March 1978), also known by the nickname Cloclo, was a French pop singer, composer, songwriter, record producer, drummer and dancer. François co-wrote the lyrics of "Comme d'habitude" (c ...

Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...

Marianne Faithfull Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...

, Colette Magny, and

Brigitte Fontaine Brigitte Fontaine, (born 24 June 1939) is a singer of avant-garde music. She has employed numerous unusual musical styles, melding rock and roll, folk, jazz, electronica, spoken word poetry, and world. She has collaborated with Stereolab, Mic ...

. He played with jazz musicians such as

Lester Young Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most ...

Archie Shepp Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but ...

Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Ch ...

Don Cherry Donald Stewart Cherry (born February 5, 1934) is a Canadian former ice hockey player, coach, and television commentator. Cherry played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Boston Bruins, and later coached the team for five se ...

, Chet Baker, the

Art Ensemble of Chicago The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians ( AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little ...

, Steve Lacy,

Gato Barbieri Leandro "Gato" Barbieri (November 28, 1932 – April 2, 2016) was an Argentine jazz tenor saxophonist who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and is known for his Latin jazz recordings of the 1970s. His nickname, Gato, is Spa ...

Jean-Luc Ponty Jean-Luc Ponty (born 29 September 1942) is a French jazz violinist and composer. Early life Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen, he was admitt ...

, and

Martial Solal Martial Solal (born August 23, 1927) is a French jazz pianist and composer. Biography Solal was born in Algiers, French Algeria, to Algerian Jewish parents. He was persuaded to study clarinet, saxophone, and piano by his mother, who was an oper ...

. In his early years, he performed with

Django Reinhardt Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most ...

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, Eric Dolphy, and

Albert Ayler Albert Ayler (; July 13, 1936 – November 25, 1970) was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer. After early experience playing R&B and bebop, Ayler began recording music during the free jazz era of the 1960s. Howev ...

. Under his own name he recorded ''Surprise-partie avec Bernard Vitet'' (on trombone!), ''La Guêpe'' on texts by Francis Ponge, ''Mehr Licht!'', and about 200 other records with the aforementioned, plus Jean-Claude Fohrenbach,

Georges Arvanitas Georges Arvanitas (June 13, 1931 – September 25, 2005) was a French jazz pianist and organist. Life and career He was born in Marseille, a child of Greek immigrants from Constantinople. At the age of four he began studying piano and initially ...

, Sunny Murray, Michel Pascal,

Alan Silva Alan Silva (born Alan Lee da Silva; January 22, 1939 in Bermuda) is an United States of America, American free jazz double bassist and Keyboard instrument, keyboard player. Biography Silva was born a British subject to an Azores, Azorean/Portug ...

Alexander von Schlippenbach Alexander von Schlippenbach (born 7 April 1938) is a German jazz pianist and composer. He came to prominence in the 1960s playing free jazz in a trio with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens, and as a member of the Globe Unity Orchest ...

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, Ivan Jullien, Christian Chevalier, Jef Gilson,

Jack Diéval Jacques "Jack" Diéval (born December 21, 1920, Douai) was a French jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader. Diéval's parents were also jazz musicians, who led an ensemble known as the DéDé Jazz Band. He studied music at the Douai Conservatory w ...

Jac Berrocal Jacques "Jac" Berrocal (born 22 October 1946, Saint-Jean d'Angély) is a French trumpeter, singer and composer. He has been active since the 1970s in the independent and avant-garde music scene, and has released many albums. He also founded and p ...

, Hélène Sage and 17 albums with Un drame musical instantané. In 1995, he co-signs the songs of ''Carton'' with Birgé, with whom he collaborates on music for films, exhibitions, and CD-Roms. Vitet invented instruments such as a reed trumpet, a multiphonic French horn, a variable tension double-bass, the dragoon which is a giant balafon with frying pans and flower pots keyboard, a clever system of modal clocks, and astonishing musical objects for

Georges Aperghis Georges Aperghis ( el, Γιώργος Απέργης; born 23 December 1945) is a Greek composer working primarily in the field of experimental music theater but has also composed a large amount of non- programmatic chamber music. He lives in Fr ...

, Tamia, and Françoise Achard. Besides trumpet, he sang and played flugelhorn, piano and violin. He composed theatre music for Jean-Marie Serrault, and for the films (''Les coeurs verts'' by Édouard Luntz, ''L'ombre de la pomme'' by Robert Lapoujade with Jean-Louis Chautemps, ''Bof'' by Claude Faraldo in collaboration with Jean Guérin,Jean Guérin ''Tacet'', Futura Son 14, 1971 and ''La femme-bourreau'' by Jean-Denis Bonan. From 1976 to 2008, he devoted himself primarily to Un Drame Musical Instantané with Jean-Jacques Birgé, improvising and composing hundreds of pieces together, experimental essays as well as symphonic pieces, songs as well as music for films. Un D.M.I., as a trio or with their 15-piece orchestra, presented multimedia shows involving cinema, video, literature, dance and new technologies. Sit
drame.org
offers hundreds of unissued pieces free to listen and download.

Notes

Sources

* Philippe Carles and Jean-Louis Comolli, ''Free Jazz Black Power'', Ed. Champ Libre, coll.10-18, 1971, p. 418-419 * Philippe Carles, André Clergeat and Jean-Louis Comolli, ''Dictionnaire du jazz'', Ed. Robert Laffont, Coll. Bouquins, Paris, 1994, p. 1220-1221.

External links

*
Site of Un drame musical instantané

''Mémoires d'un dilettante''
in Les Allumés du Jazz n°5, 2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Vitet, Bernard 1934 births French classical composers French male classical composers 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers Bebop trumpeters Free jazz trumpeters 2013 deaths French experimental musicians French jazz trumpeters Male trumpeters Avant-garde jazz trumpeters French jazz composers Male jazz composers 20th-century trumpeters 21st-century trumpeters 20th-century French composers 21st-century French composers 20th-century French male musicians 21st-century French male musicians 20th-century jazz composers 21st-century jazz composers