Created in 2015, the Octet La Nocturne is a French jazz band based in Montpellier. It began as a gathering of musicians passionate about the jazz of the 1950s and 60s. Inspired by Charles Mingus’s workshop, the first objective was to get together to play improvised jazz but with the configuration and sound of a 60s octet. A name was born at the same time as their first composition, Lost in a Nocturne. The Octet has been in constant evolution ever since, navigating between its hard bop aesthetic and the modernity of its time. Since its creation, the OLN has performed on various stages across France in concerts that have allowed the band’s sound to be welded together.
Basing its repertoire on original compositions, the group, through the intermediary of pianist and composer Gabriel Rigaud, offers a sensory journey, not hesitating to use the tools of free jazz, the voices of its protagonists or references to contemporary music. Sometimes romantic, sometimes funny, but always surprising, these musicians themselves never really know where they are going, but they venture there like the American jazzmen they cherish
