François Bourassa Quartet

This show will have 2 sets of music.

Line-up:
François Bourassa – Piano, Composition
Guy Boisvert – Upright Bass
André Leroux – Saxophones, Flute
Guillaume Pilote – Drums

François Bourassa—now with eleven albums of original music under his belt—has become an ambassador for Canada’s thriving jazz community at an international level.. A model of constant evolution, he continues to seek out new challenges for himself, his colleagues and his growing community of listeners. After releasing his first solo piano album “L’Impact du silence” in 2021, Bourassa and his Quartet are back with a new live album “Swirl”, released on July 7, 2023.

His album, “Number 9” (2017), is a subtle namecheck to the Beatles’ psychedelic oeuvre; the album also salutes two more of his guiding influences, Carla Bley (to whom he paid tribute at last year’s Montreal Jazz Festival with the Orchestre National de Jazz de Montréal) and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His eponymous quartet has been a staple of Montreal’s artistic landscape since the early 1980s. The band features founding bassist Guy Boisvert, longtime saxophonist André Leroux, and Guillaume Pilote as the most recent addition in Bourassa’s mentorship of young drummers. Initially formed as a trio, Bourassa won the Montreal Jazz Festival’s New Talent prize in 1985, kickstarting their touring career throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.