Collection: Henri Texier

Henri Texier started on piano at fifteen in Paris nightclubs, switched to double bass at sixteen after being fascinated by Wilbur Ware's hard bop attack behind Thelonious Monk, and taught himself the instrument. He formed his first group in 1965 inspired by Don Cherry and Ornette Coleman, making it one of the earliest French free jazz ensembles, and spent the rest of the 1960s working with Jean-Luc Ponty, Michel Portal and François Jeanneau before joining Phil Woods's European Rhythm Machine from 1968 to 1972 alongside Daniel Humair, the pianist George Gruntz and guitarist Gordon Beck. The Humair-Jeanneau-Texier trio of the late 1970s produced "Humair Jeanneau Texier" (Owl, 1979) and "Akagera" (JMS, 1980), an Africa-themed double album that pointed toward one of the two great conceptual threads in his own later work. In 1982 he formed a trio with saxophonist Louis Sclavis and drummer Aldo Romano that developed into the Romano-Sclavis-Texier band, documenting Africa through three Label Bleu albums photographed by Guy Le Querrec. A parallel thread opened in 1993 with "An Indian's Week" (Label Bleu), a suite exploring the links Texier drew between the genocide of Native Americans and the oppression of African Americans through jazz. That project ran through "Sky Dancers" (Label Bleu, 2016) and "An Indian's Life" (Label Bleu, 2023), forming a trilogy across three decades. He signed to Label Bleu in 1986 and has remained there for the core of his solo recording career. His son Sébastien Texier joined him as clarinettist and saxophonist in the early 1990s and has been a regular collaborator since. Texier remains active in Paris, aged 81.