Diamant H20 – Jean-Claude Montredon, 2017

🇲🇶 🥁 🎷 🎶 ✨ In 2017, the renowned Jean-Claude Montredon released his first and ultimately only album under his own name, Diamant H20. The Martinican drummer, who passed away just over a year ago, had been a key figure in Creole jazz throughout his life. In 1980, he joined Roland Brival’s Creole Gypsy—and before that, the cult afro-funk of West African Cosmos—followed by a series of notable collaborations. With artists such as Luther François, Alain Jean-Marie, Al Lirvat, Roland Brival, and Lucien Joly, he brought his natural elegance, both in playing and in style, forming partnerships that resulted in albums marking the history of Creole jazz. On Diamant H20, his ensemble is a mix of Caribbean and European jazz, another domain in which he excelled. Alongside Alain Jean-Marie and Michel Alibo, he invited Stéphane Belmondo and Jon Handelsman to perform his own compositions, including the iconic Children, created thirty years earlier within Luther François’s Caribbean Jazz Workshop. The album embodies the class of its author, and Le Bananier bleu, under Alain Joséphine’s pen, had been captivated.