The dress style in itself is a contrast : the short, white beard, neatly trimmed, and the jet-black beret perched on the back of his head. Something like the jazz that Henri Texier has spent the last forty years composing with his double bass, constantly on the look out for new sounds.

RFI Musique: How did the Strada Sextet, with whom you recorded Alerte à l’eau, come about?
Henri Texier: We first played together in September 2003. At the time, the Azur Quintet was coming to an end after twelve years of really fruitful collaborations with Tony Rabeson, Glenn Ferris and Bojan Zulfikarpasic. We had explored quite a few paths and I was feeling a need to try out and discover other sounds. We wanted to make a sort of orchestra - something between the fanfares of New Orleans and the groups that you find in Eastern Europe. We tried a sextet, and Manu Codjia was immediately at ease playing with the winds. There was something interesting in the sound and it was a promising mix. I’m quite a good listener, and if I have one quality, it’s being able to find which textures go together. In any case, it worked.

What with the Azur Quintet, the Strada Sextet, Mad Nomad and your first-rate trio with Aldo Romano and Louis Sclavis, you’ve led quite a few groups - yet you have never stayed put. Choice or pure chance?
I think it’s pure chance. Part of the spirit of jazz is getting together with other musicians and I was lucky enough to cross paths with a lot of them. Each time, there was the same desire to invent, break up, renew, and find other sounds, and especially to enjoy. That’s the key word, even if the music can bring a whole lot of suffering at times.

Why did you call the album Alerte à l’eau?
Water fascinates me - the sea, liquids, the rain. Today it’s raining, spitting down, and I love it! Maybe it’s my Breton blood, but I’ll get over it (laughter). The title is in fact the name of a piece that I wrote at the time that I was playing with François Jeanneau and Daniel Humair. But beyond the album’s title, ecology has always interested me. I remember when the word was invented and it immediately meant something to me. I’ve always been a rebel and angry about the way nature and beauty are constantly under attack. My musical life is so short, so it felt like time to do an album on nature. And of course it’s a hot subject. 

How do you write music?
It’s a twenty-four hours a day job, with some gestation periods and the odd writer’s block on a couple of bars. Some artists have rituals, but I try to feed myself on anything that comes into my ears. I listen, I hear, and then at some point I get behind the piano. For this album, though, I did shut myself away for a fortnight to hammer it out.

What do you call improvisation?
Something instant. Making jazz is like trying to make a sculpture out of passing time. It’s giving a sense of volume, depth, texture, speed and tension. Improvisation is so supple that the exchange can be very quick and strong and deep. That can be tiresome too, but when it works, it brings about some really original sensations.

Three of the titles on the album are about Africa. Do you have a particular link to the continent?
Africa was a revelation to me and allowed me to discover jazz by oral tradition, rather than Europe’s written tradition. I went for the first time in 1990 with Aldo Romano, Louis Sclavis and Guy le Querrec. We crossed the whole continent like travelling acrobats, through sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa… But we shouldn’t say Africa, we should say "the Africas", because there is such a concentration of diversity there. When you go to Africa, a permanent transformation takes place in you. If France is the verb nation, then Africa is the music continent. When I played in Africa, the most extraordinary thing was the reaction of the people. The relationship with the audience wasn’t a show relationship but a share relationship. When I see how the whole continent is sinking, I feel a deep sense of sadness.

Do you feel pessimist about the world and its future?
No, I don’t have a pessimist view of the world, but I have a pessimist view of its two-legged inhabitants. Man is just a speck of dust looking out for his own end and trying to kill himself. This album is a warning and a cry for help.

Do you think that music can serve a political purpose?
There are a lot of artists who worry about their commitment and what their creation means within society. I would tend to give a negative answer and say that music can’t do any harm. The worst thing you can do is not talk. I think it’s important for ideas to circulate, and that’s where music comes in because it is a good medium for broadcasting ideas and emotions and linking people together. We are living a musical ecological catastrophe, in a world with a polluted spirit. At the end of the day, artists like me are the "depolluters". I hope that when I play a musical note, the listener feels good and that people feel as if their minds and perceptions have had an airing. That’s one reason why I feel so strongly about anything that holds back cultural expression. I don’t think that policies go far enough in the right direction. Do you think it’s acceptable that a record should be taxed at the same rate as a fur coat? With policies like that, social links no longer mean anything.