OZMA is celebrating 20 years together. Founded in 2001 in Strasbourg, France, the genre-bending jazz quintet has built a major international profile, recording eight albums and touring more than 40 countries. Somehow, though, the United States — the country that created jazz — has never been one of those countries.
Now it has. The anniversary festivities — delayed due to covid — include a performance in New York City and two in Washington, Oct. 25 and 26, both at the Embassy of France in Georgetown. The first evening features OZMA playing live musical accompaniment to a silent film (Buster Keaton’s 1923 “Three Ages”); the second will spotlight the band’s most recent recording, 2020’s “Hyperlapse.”
“It’s a milestone,” Scharlé says. “France and the U.S.A. have a long relationship regarding jazz — so much of the French tradition has been inspired by America. So it’s quite amazing for us to be there.”
Perhaps it’s just as well that OZMA waited so long to reach such an obvious destination. The quintet’s artistry is entirely based on taking jazz to unexpected places.
Indeed, Scharlé’s first musical love was heavy metal. He was playing drums in a metal band when in late 2001 he was asked to accompany a guitarist, Adrien Dennefeld, for the latter’s audition at the Strasbourg Conservatory. Bassist Edouard Séro-Guillaume rounded out the audition combo, and when Scharlé himself began at the conservatory shortly afterward, the three found themselves together in the jazz department. They decided to keep the trio going.
They expanded to a quintet in 2004, adding two other jazz students, trombonist Guillaume Nuss and saxophonist David Florsch. (In the years since, Dennefeld and Florsch have left the band, replaced by Tam de Villiers and Julien Soro, respectively.)
But if jazz was the through-line, OZMA (named for an early extraterrestrial search project) distinguished itself by having each member bring in other musical interests. While Scharlé was the acknowledged metalhead, he says, “the bassist, Edouard, was really into Caribbean music, ska and that kind of stuff. Guillaume is really more of a funk guy. We all brought our own things and fed it together into our music.” They have eschewed jazz standards or covers, preferring to channel their eclectic influences into original compositions.
The mix has led some journalists and critics to describe OZMA as “jazz fusion”: the merger of jazz, rock, funk and world music that Miles Davis pioneered in the 1970s. Scharlé agrees — to a point.
“If fusion means we mix in different influences and music styles, then I would say yes, of course,” he says. “But I don’t know what band today would not be able to be called fusion in some way. We are talking about the first generations with the internet, with streaming, with access to all the musics worldwide. That makes it quite logical for bands like us to mix many influences and not be stuck to only one genre.”
The word he prefers is “playful.” It’s a multilayered word, encompassing the fact that the members are playing (and interplaying) instruments, as well as playing with sounds and concepts.
Though the band was founded as a collective, Scharlé has increasingly taken a leadership role in recent years. “Hyperlapse” found him for the first time composing an entire OZMA album — 10 tracks — by himself.
He’s also prodded them toward experimenting with electronics, which have intrigued him for a long time. His bandmates have accepted this with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Saxophonist Soro, for one, was reluctant about the suggestion that he double on keyboards. “I said, ‘Pick up the piano, bring keyboards onstage with us, and we’ll have fun.’ Julien wasn’t fond of that in the beginning. But we pushed it a bit, and now he’s very happy.”
Nuss, on the other hand, “got geeky about it. He was really working on finding effects on trombone using pedals, like a guitar.”
This musical phase will dominate the band’s D.C. performances. They’ll also present a new composition of Scharlé’s, “Elevation” (originally written for the band to play with the six-piece contemporary music ensemble Percussions de Strasbourg).
The next phase, however, isn’t far off. OZMA is scheduled to record a new album next year; Scharlé has already started writing for it. “I don’t know yet if it’s going to go further in this electronic sound or back to something acoustic,” he muses. “But I’m also thinking of other things. Having other people outside of the band write songs for us — saying, ‘This is my band, this is what we did for 20 years, now what would you do with it?’ Or for the first time to make a cover, possibly a rock song adapted and arranged for OZMA.”
With so many ideas in the tank, one can only hope it’s not another 20 years before OZMA returns to American shores.
Oct. 25 and 26 at 7:30 p.m. at La Maison Française, Embassy of France, 4101 Reservoir Rd. NW. franceintheus.org. $20-$30.
