Festival Sons d'hiver

Jean Grae

Breathe deeply now! Crossing the péripherique into Paris' infamous banlieue (suburbs) is not always synonymous with civil uprisings from France's down-and-out youths. In fact as house prices rise and Parisians swap their stamp-sized inner-city apartments for larger spaces in zones at the end of the metro and on RER lines, the suburbs are beginning to get the cultural input they deserve - starting with this funky music festival, 'Sons d'hiver', which covers everything from electro and hip-hop to jazz and world music.

Held in parts of the Val-de-Marne suburbs (like Cachan, Choisy-le-Roi and Ivry-sur-Seine), as well as central Paris, you can catch everything from Amerindian jazz by Pura Fé, Bad Dog and John Trundell, William Parker and his orchestra, Indian sound signed Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay and Senegalese musician Mola Sylla.

Sons d'hiver's hip-hop selection is particularly hard-core this year: check out the rebellious afro-punk and rap-funk of Invincible, Jean Grae and Tamar-Kali; or try Ill Chemistry's fresh hip-hop sound, one of the hottest groups in Minneapolis right now, mixing melody impressive beat-box rhythm.

Topping all that off are pioneering free jazz saxophonists Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders.  Archie will saxing to the expert tinkering of German jazz pianist Joachim Kühn; while Pharoah brings two orchestras into the limelight - Underground Sao Paulo and Underground Chicago - which both promise to mix Chicagoan jazz with electro samples and Brazilian folk.

See the full programme here.

Festival Sons d'Hiver 2012 DR

By AB