Ghédalia Tazartes

French avant-garde artist Ghédalia Tazartès cultivated a nearly uncategorizable aesthetic which he referred to as impromuz. Utilizing tape cut-up techniques equally reminiscent of musique concrète and experimental film, he created engrossing, multi-layered, ever-shifting soundworlds, recording his improvisations for hours at a time and editing the most enlightening moments into highly idiosyncratic releases. While he played several instruments, including the accordion, Tibetan bowls, flutes, and percussion, his voice was his primary instrument, and he had a distinctly shamanic approach to vocalization, switching from throat singing to punk-like screeching to spoken poetry at a moment’s notice, and just as frequently, combining real and invented languages and idioms. Debuting with the seminal Diasporas in 1979, Tazartès sporadically performed and released records during the 1980s and ’90s, earning a living through his cinema and theater work. He returned to the stage in 2004, and remained highly prolific for the rest of his life, releasing solo works such as 2009’s Repas Froid as well as collaborations with Jac Berrocal, David Fenech, Chris Corsano, and several other artists.
Originally named Gérard, Tazartès was born in Paris to Judaeo-Spanish parents of Greek descent in 1947. He remained in the city his entire life, somewhat famously residing in the same apartment since the late ’60s. He began experimenting with vocal-based tape compositions, and began scoring dance pieces before recording the collage-like audio that would comprise his early albums. Diasporas was released by French label Cobalt in 1979, followed in 1980 by the nearly industrial-sounding Tazartès' Transports. Tazartès was mentioned in the Nurse with Wound List, an insert included with the first two albums by the British experimental group listing hundreds of obscure acts which they regarded as influences, and this namecheck helped raise his profile among record collectors. Une éclipse totale de soleil, containing two side-long collages of voices and sporadic rhythms, was released by Celluloid in 1984. Two more albums, Tazartès and Check Point Charlie, appeared on Ayaa by the end of the decade, exploring rhythms more closely resembling Indian and African traditions while remaining impossible to categorize.
Tazartès composed music for the films Le petit chat est mort (1992) and Ivan & Abraham (1993). Alga Marghen began reissuing his early albums on CD for the first time in 1996, and his sixth album, Voyage à l’ombre, was released by Demosaurus in 1997. He returned to live performance in 2004, initially collaborating with other musicians before embarking on solo tours. Two mini CDs, 5 Rimbaud 1 Verlaine and Les danseurs de la pluie, were both released in 2006, and the full-lengths Jeanne and Hystérie off Music both appeared in 2007. Repas Froid was released by Tanzprocess in 2009, with a vinyl edition on Pan two years later. Tazartès worked with El-G and Jo Tanz as part of the group Reines d'Angleterre, releasing their debut LP Les Comores on Bo’Weavil Recordings in 2010. Solo album Ante-Mortem was released by Hinterzimmer that year. Works 1977-79, a box set of Tazartès’ early works, was issued by Vinyl-on-Demand in 2011, and Alga Marghen released Granny Awards, a brief LP of previously unissued archival recordings. Additionally, a collaboration with Jac Berrocal and David Fenech titled Superdisque was released by Belgian label Sub Rosa.
Coda Lunga, and LP and DVD based on Tazartès’ travels to India, was issued by Von in 2012, and the artist began presenting a solo show of material from the album. Globe et Dynastie, Reines d'Angleterre’s second album, appeared the same year. Alpes, a collaboration with experimental ensemble GOL, was released by Planam in 2013. A solo album titled La. appeared on Norwegian imprint dBUT interambience in 2014. Single-sided LP Il regalo della Befana was issued by Holidays Records in early 2015, and later in the year, La bar mitzvah du chien, featuring the voice of his son Lalo Tazartès, was released by Bisou in 2015. Vooruit 17​.​05​.​2015, a live improvisation with Chris Corsano and Dennis Tyfus, appeared on Ultra Eczema in 2016. At the end of the year, Monotype Records issued Carp's Head, a collaboration with Paweł Romańczuk and Andrzej Załęski. Schulevy Maker, a live LP of a 2013 concert at Cafe Oto with Maya Dunietz, appeared on Holotype Editions in 2017. Tazartès performed with Rhys Chatham in Paris in 2018, and additionally played a concert with saxophonist Quentin Rollet and analog synth player Jérôme Lorichon. Tazartès contributed vocals to several tracks on Emmanuelle Parrenin and Detlef Weinrich’s album Jours de Grève, which was released by Versatile Records in early 2021. Tazartès died of cancer on February 9, 2021, at the age of 73. Quoi qu’il en soit, a book of photography taken in the artist’s apartment packaged with a CD of his set with Rollet and Lorichon, was issued shortly after his death. ~ Paul Simpson