After his step on the Zappaian side, Pierrejean Gaucher feels the need to return to writing through his compositions. His meeting with saxophonist Eric Seva then gave him the desire to write especially for the extremes: the baritone and the soprano (or even the sopranino). All this in a logic of permanent counterpoint with the guitar, inspired by the duo Gerry Mulligan-Chet Baker.

Always faithful to his drummer of the time (André Charlier), he imagined and wrote a repertoire that travelled by borrowing from European folklore (hence the name of the group) to offer a music rich in colour and very virtuoso. This one benefited from a state order from the Ministry of Culture. This project combines a demanding writing style in the tradition of Abus and Zappa, with improvisation tracks inherited from the New Trio.

In 1994, a French festival invited guitarist Pierrejean Gaucher to stage an evening in homage to Frank Zappa. Pierrejean was a fan of the first hour and became passionate about this project. He began by listening to the entire discography of the brilliant mustache, then extracted his favourite extracts and rearranged them for a quintet composed of some of the best jazzmen in France.

Rather than playing a few songs “the way he did”, he opted for another approach: zapping Zappa. In fact, mixing whole titles, motifs, even simple riffs, to recreate a musical kaleidoscope of the Zappaian universe, from the first “Mothers” to the latest contemporary works. Following the success of this project in many concerts and festivals, it was recorded “Live” in October 1997. A second public recording in Germany was released as a bootleg in 2002, with another team.

After 12 years of Abus, Pierrejean Gaucher feels the need to give up writing a little to refocus on his instrument. The meeting with the Belgian drummer André Charlier and the bassist Daniel Yvinec gave him the opportunity to create this New Trio with which he recorded 2 albums.

For the first time, he alternates compositions and covers (Beatles, Police, Zappa, Nougaro) but with a writing base reduced to a minimum, in the image of jazz standards. The priority here is given to collective improvisation and space, with the exploration of more adventurous regions with contrasting reliefs.

With 8 albums and 400 concerts in 12 years, Abus Dangereux occupies a prominent place in the French jazz scene of the 1980s. With this constantly changing training, Pierrejean Gaucher has created a research laboratory that has allowed him to enrich his musical vocabulary by digesting and transforming in his own way all the influences he then receives.

Each album of the group is an opportunity for new encounters (nearly 50 musicians participated in the adventure over the whole duration). If the first album claims an identity close to a progressive (jazz) rock with strong references to Zeuhl (Magma, Zao) or the Canterbury school, the following ones will become closer to a modern electric jazz, whose models could be Weather Report or Steps Ahead, without forgetting Frank Zappa or Hermeto Pascoal. But limiting this group to “fusion” would be reductive because its leader has always refused labels wherever they come from.

In 1986, Abus lost its dangerous label and became one of the first groups to experiment with the use of computers on stage, thus experimenting with machine and musician interaction. Like a Pat Metheny, the synthesizer guitar also becomes an important tool in the guitarist’s sound palette.

Through Abus, the guitarist has always sought to privilege an original writing and collective rendering, even if a dose of individual prowess is often present, as Bobby Rangell, Randy Brecker, Stéphane Belmondo, Olivier Hutman, Etienne MBappé… who at one time or another, have marked the life of the band.