Texier's septet closes his 'Indian' trilogy with a poetic road-movie: tribal echoes, guest voice Himiko Paganotti, tributes to Mingus and Carla Bley.

For thirty years, Henri Texier has returned again and again to an imaginary bond forged in his Parisian childhood in Batignolles, where he always chose to play Indians rather than cowboys. An Indian's Life closes the loose trilogy he began in 1993 with An Indian's Week and continued in 2016 with the more overtly militant Sky Dancers, and it does so through an entirely new septet built around long-time partners Sébastien Texier (sax, clarinet), Manu Codjia (guitar) and Gautier Garrigue (drums), joined for the first time by Sylvain Rifflet (tenor sax, clarinet), Belgian trumpeter Carlo Nardozza and, in a first for a Texier record, singer Himiko Paganotti. Texier had already assembled the compositions and the album's title when Paganotti's voice, taking hold of the sole cover on the record, the standard 'Black and Blue', revealed to him during the sessions that the 'Indian' whose life he was describing was in fact a woman: the opening track was renamed 'Apache Woman' and the whole record fell into place as a road-movie tracing the flashes and moods of a contemporary woman's life, from tenderness to defiance. Alongside this narrative arc, Texier folds in quiet tributes to some of his musical family and influences, naming pieces for Charles Mingus, and for Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, while the ghosts of Don Cherry and Paul Motian surface throughout. Produced once again with longtime sound engineer Philippe Teissier Du Cros, the album gathers eight tracks that move between lyricism and understatement, extending Texier's decades-long dialogue with the Native American imaginary without ever tipping into folklore or pastiche. Liner text by Stéphane Ollivier. Released on Label Bleu in October 2023 as CD and LP, the record arrives as the culmination of a musical relationship with the Native American imaginary that has now spanned three decades and three distinct ensembles, each shaped by the specific musicians Texier chose to surround himself with at the time.

Track Listing

• Apache Woman
• Black Indians
• Miss Canthus
• Black And Blue
• Mingus Love Call
• No Fear Song (to Jason Pinto)
• Hopi Hippie
• Steve And Carla (to Steve Swallow And Carla Bley)

Additional Details

Label: Label Bleu

Genre: Jazz

Language: English

Run Time: 52 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 11/06/26

UPC: 3521383479322