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Francis Dreyfus is the founder of the well-known and well-respected
Dreyfus Jazz label, one of those labels you pay special attention to. His catalogue includes artists such as Chet Baker, Philip Catherine, Anne Ducros, Richard Galliano, Rosario Giuliani, Steve Grossman, Roy Haynes, Biréli Lagrène, Didier Lockwood, Michel Petrucciani, Ahmad Jamal, Marcus Miller, and many other great artists and musicians.
 We meet him at the Press Conference held at Blue Note for Marcus Miller, and we seize the occasion to interview him.
E.S.: Could you tell us something about Marcus Miller? How you came to know him, and how your collaboration started?
F.D.:
I think I met him.... I don't want to make any mistake....I think I met him in 1979 in L.A. and through his former manager I represented him in publishing, you know for the songs, in the French countries, and we started to work like that. I introduced him to
Jean-Michel Jarre when Jean-Michel Jarre was recording his fourth album called "The Look" in New York, and the bass player was Marcus Miller. Marcus was very young at the time. After that we were
permanently in contact and when I started to open my jazz lable, in  1991 I think, the first artist I called was Marcus, through his manager, and I said: "Look, you know, you have to record", and stuff like that, and finally the project was achieved and now he's been working with my recording company,
Dreyfus Jazz for 13 or 14 years and we are
quite close friends, and we work quite often together, and he is touring at
least twice per 18 months in Europe, and sometimes even three times, as he did
last year: three times in 18 months. This year it will be twice in one year
because he has to come back again in Europe more or less at the end of June -
end July.
E.S.: So he'll be back again soon. Do you know where he'll be touring? Milano again? Or which other towns? Maybe Rome?
F.D.: Maybe, but maybe not. You know, it's one of my
plans. Because I'm in Milan I realise that maybe he's not playing in Rome, so I
want to call the promoter, you know, his agent, to tell him: "Have you forgotten
Rome or not?"  But I'll try and see if he can stay a little longer. But you know, I think it's very difficult because you have certain periods of time with an artist; he stayed 10 days I think in L.A. at his home, but he was coming from a 3 week tour in Japan, so this means that the record is also released at the same time, and then in Europe, in the States, now he is here, becuse we pushed him to make the tour, in order to promote the record, because of course all the journalists, the TV people, they are very happy to be in contact, and also the audience, of course!
E.S.: And Marcus Miller surely has a great audience, he is into various music styles, he's not in a very small niche.
F.D.: Yes, exactly, he's not in a niche any more. And from what I've heard, the new album was just released in the States, and the radio stations are very happy and enthusiastic about that, and he has to tour also over there. For this reason after that we have planned to make a tour, and all the dates are not yet totally definite but he cannot stay for two months: you have to make a choice. The choice does not really depend upon my goal, but it depends more on how many kilometers he has to cover, the distances, the choice of the countries to visit. I'm lucky I'm not into that planning sort of thing. It's such a headache!
E.S.: Of course the organizational and planning issues have to be solved before starting a tour. Many people don't realize the kind of work that lies ahead of a tour.
F.D.:
In fact many people don't understand, and they think: "Why didn't he come?" Because he cannot, that's all! He
would come, because Marcus, you will whitness this tonight: he loves the stage,
my, he really loves to play and be on stage! He was opening in Paris 3 or 4 days
ago, and he was terrific. Absolutely. You'll see him tonight.
Russian
Translation:
http://www.nestor.minsk.by/jz/articles/2005/05081303.html
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Publishing Date: 22/09/2005
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