Monsieur Tuba, Michel Godard and the Italian saxophonist Gavino Murgia are interpreting Sardinian folklore and the old music of France in a new way.

Michel Godard is primarily known as a musician who lends a dancing legerity to the ponderous brass monster that is the tuba. In Deep, however, he employs the tuba only as his second instrument. His main instrument here is the serpent. The serpent is a historical wood instrument whose name already suggests its snakelike form. In Renaissance music it was responsible for the bass lines, and hence it can confidently be considered a precursor of the tuba. This twisted tube found use most recently in French military bands of the nineteenth century. In the 1980s the Renaissance instrument experienced its own renaissance, thanks to the early music boom. Michel Godard discovered it for jazz and thus introduced it to a completely new context.

Gavino Murgia's voice possesses a good sound in Mediterranean music. Together with Godard, he has also worked with Rabih Abou-Khalil. His gravelly bass can be reminiscent of a Jew's harp, a deep shawm, or the chirping of a cicada in Sardinia's scorching heat. As a result, it truly challenges Godard's serpent to a vocal-instrumental duel. Deep, however, is far more than a conversation between two musicians with an affinity for the sound of the south. It is a journey into the history of Western music from the Renaissance to the present. It is a lively trip, which for all its archaism does away with the dearly cherished prejudice that improvisation is causally linked to the Afro-American musical tradition.

'Although we wrote the pieces ourselves, Gavino was inspired by Sardinian ethnic music, and I by the early music of France. Hence it made sense to perform certain pieces just with voice and serpent.

The quality of the sound says a lot about the make-up of the piece. On the contrary, we had to forget it. The title Deep refers to the fact that we wanted to penetrate as deeply as possible to the roots of our music.'

Track Listing

• Ambre
• Adarre
• Gorropu
• Chloris
• Deep
• Pane Caiente
• Abba Mama
• Choying
• Intrighinu
• Les Sorcières
• Anninia

Additional Details

Label: INTUITION

Genre: Jazz

Run Time: 51:46 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 08/22/25

UPC: 750447341524