Matthieu Donarier | Santiago Quintans - Sun Dome

The association between Spanish (living in France and being a part of its jazz scene) guitarist Santiago Quintans and French saxophonist Matthieu Donarier is the consequence of a “carte blanche” given to the first one in order to form a couple of duos. First, Quintans had double bassist Paul Rogers as partner and the results were more than positive.

Then, came Donarier and something particularly special happened. Quintans found a musical soulmate. Like him, Donarier has as a principle not to exclude anything from music, be it abstract textures or ear-tintilating melodies, microtonal explorations or the good old counterpoint, linear phrasings or polirhythmic constructions.

For them, the invitation to “free the jazz” is literal: they use everything at their disposal, with no preconceptions regarding any convention and the usual divisions between what’s considered “mainstream” or “avant-garde”. “Sun Dome” is true open jazz played with a sculptor approach, and this means that in every moment we hear the sounds being modeled, as if they were clay, wood or stone. This has some welcomed implications: the act of listening to the other comes like a gesture, and both these musicians not only play their instruments as they play the space around them. The result is pure magic.