French label PALM was one of those imprints that seem to only follow an internal logic, impermeable to trends or economic imperatives. Launched in 1973 and active through the decade, PALM didn’t build the kind of catalog that sets the stage for easy canonisation. It was a jazz label, definitely, but not one that could be squarely equated with any specific school or style. Rather, it was an individual venture whose name has endured because of the standard it set for itself. In that respect, it was very much at the image of its owner, musician Jef Gilson.

This playlist presents an overview of the label’s main series of releases, catalogue numbers 1 to 32. The three opening selections are excerpted from reissues inaugurating Parisian label Souffle Continu’s PALM Redux series, the start of an effort to bring the catalogue back in print. Other selections are sourced from original releases.

Born Jean-Francois Quiévreux in 1926, Gilson was in his late forties when he launched PALM. He already had three decades of chequered, multifaceted activities behind him. After a start on clarinet during World War II in a New Orleans group that included Boris Vian and Claude Luter, he moved on to piano, bebop, modality, composition, arranging, and kept going forward, up to the free jazz era, opening his own music up to new possibilities rather than seeking the full embrace of any new development.

In the process, Gilson worked many of the jobs associated with the music business, from record shop operator to magazine contributor. Gilson contributed to several attempts at the creation of independent labels starting in the early 1950s with imprints named Jericho, Eko, SFP. Leading his own bands and developing highly personal conceptions early on – a facet anthologized by Jazzman Records – Gilson played a part in the development of numerous musicians, from future jazz star Jean-Luc Ponty to Alain Tabar-Nouval.

PALM, which stood for Artistic, Literary, and Musical Productions, was a musician-owned label, but more than artist control, what was central for Gilson was his identity as an independent producer. L’Indépendant Du Jazz, the title of the information bulletin he ran concurrently, made it clear. Gilson defined independence as operation outside of the tutelage of financial groups and commercial circuits having primarily non-musical purposes. Immediately before launching PALM, Gilson recorded for Gérard Terronès’ Futura Records, which he considered as a pivotal independent venture and which was probably the closest in spirit to what he would himself do.

“I would say that I now even have a brand image. I am known for never having released anything on PALM outside of the line that I established for myself and which consists in producing only new and indispensable things,” Gilson said in a 1980 issue of Jazzophone. To back his claim, he cited Malagasy, Jean-Charles Capon, Byard Lancaster, Machi-Oul, Philippe Maté, François Jeanneau, and André Jaume.

Those musicians shared varying degrees of association with aspects of free jazz, but more importantly their inclusion in the catalog made sense within a precise aesthetic policy. Gilson did not discuss it in print, but clues are provided by the contrast with what he issued on his Un-Deux-Trois subsidiary rather than on PALM, starting in 1975.

The first PALM LP was a repressing of an album first released by a small catholic label, 1969 recordings made in Madagascar featuring Gilson and musicians such as Serge Rahoerson and Roland de Comarmond that included a Pharoah Sanders rendition. Key for Gilson during the early 1970s, his work with Malagasy musicians was documented on two more records featuring musicians met in the island but then active in France, notably multi-instrumentalists Del Rabenja and Sylvin Marc (see tracks 1-3 in this playlist). Malagasy musicians would be part of the pool of players heard on later PALM releases (11, 13).

An impressive total of ten sides were devoted to Philadelphia saxophonist Byard Lancaster in 1973 and 1974, an extensive documentation of the multiple facets of his work up to the complete solo, a regular feature of PALM LPs (4-5, 8). Vibraphonist Khan Jamal, a Lancaster associate, led a date that also served as a showcase for trumpeter Clint Jackson III (6). Black Artists Group trumpeter Baikida Carroll recorded an album that Gilson announced in 1974 as his best production (7). The French musicians named earlier completed the catalog, as did drummer Jacques Thollot with a hybrid project fusing jazz, contemporary classical, and pop sensibilities (9-10, 13-16). Of course, Gilson featured his own work as a musician and composer, notably with a four-LPs Anthology.

PALM benefited from a distinctive layout and photography, often by Thierry Trombert. Gilson's two decades as a professional sound engineer were also an important factor. He operated his own studios and possessed a rare combination of skills that gave PALM a unique sound. Gilson favoured simple means: few microphones, no sound isolation, and reliance on the musicians’ ability to find their own sonic balance rather than on mixing. But his approach was not one of obsessive devotion to pure sound, he made records and used, when called for, overdubs and electronics (7-10, 13).

Later 1970s PALM releases included material by future free music heavyweights who had started out in California: David Murray, Frank Lowe, and Butch Morris (12-13), who also worked with Gilson’s Europamerica big band (14). The last album to be included in PALM’s original series was a David S. Ware release taped in late 1978 (16).
A second and final phase in the life of PALM began with the reprise of its catalog by Corsican militant Jean-Pierre Graziani’s Vendémiaire label in late 1981. Releases and represses bearing both label’s names followed – including Byard Lancaster’s Funny Funky Rib Crib, originally scheduled to be PALM 14 (8) – but no more original Gilson jazz productions.

The last track included in this selection was not released by PALM, but it constitutes a roundabout return to the early days of the label. This never heard before tape captures Byard Lancaster and a Parisian rhythm section at the legendary Chat qui pêche club in late 1973, a month after the saxophonist’s first PALM recordings. From a private archive of 1970s Paris free jazz scene live recordings that also includes extensive material from Ray Stephen Oche, this remarkable session documenting yet another side of the “complete Byard” that Gilson worked to present will hopefully find its way to a full release (17).

Thanks to Nick Coupland

Playlist

Malagasy/Gilson
“A Tana”
From Malagasy
(PALM/Souffle Continu)

Sylvain Marc/Del Rabenja
“Del-Light”
From Madagascar Now
(PALM/Souffle Continu)

Malagasy/Gilson
“Buddha’s Vision”
From At Newport-Paris
(PALM/Souffle Continu)

Byard Lancaster
“John III”
From Us
(PALM)

Byard Lancaster/Clint Jackson III
“Mother Africa - Second Part”
From Mother Africa
(PALM)

Khan Jamal featuring Clint Jackson III
“Clint”
From Give The Vibes Some
(PALM)

Baikida E J Carroll
“Forest Scorpion” (excerpt)
From Orange Fish Tears
(PALM)

Byard Lancaster
“Loving Kindness”
From Funny Funky Rib Crib
(Vendémiaire-PALM/Kindred Spirits)

Jacques Thollot
“Watch Devil Go”
From Watch Devil Go
(PALM)

François Jeanneau
“À L'Ombre Des Forces Obscures - Triton II”
From Une Bien Curieuse Planète
(PALM)

Fred Ramamonjiarisoa
“Salana” (excerpt)
From Untitled
(PALM)

Frank Lowe
“Carmen”
From The Other Side
(PALM)

Jean-Charles Capon/Philippe Maté/Butch Morris/Serge Rahoerson
“Spanish Cake Walk”
From Untitled
(PALM)

Europamerica
“Chromobachism”
From Europamerica
(PALM)

André Jaume
“Duende”
From Le Collier De La Colombe
(PALM/CELP)

David S Ware featuring Jean-Charles Capon
“In Memory Of” (excerpt)
From From Silence To Music
(PALM)

Byard Lancaster/Siegfried Kessler/Didier Levallet/Franco Manzecchi
“Live Excerpt”
Chat qui pêche, 1973
(unreleased)