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JACQUES MOURY BEAUCHAMP
(JAC BEAUCHAMP)
PHOTOGRAPHER / MUSICIAN / STORYTELLER
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THE
BLUES
IN
PHOTOS,
IN
STORIES
& IN
MUSIC
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Franco-American Jacques Moury Beauchamp (Jac Beauchamp) met the blues more than half a century ago.
Today, when he creates highly evocative photographic images or shares his music with an audience, the blues remains his main source of inspiration.
A selection of his photographic series « Bluescapes » is in the permanent collection of the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
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Muddy Waters' house on Stoval Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1990
from the series "BLUESCAPES, landscapes of the Delta" |
In France, he plays and sings blues standards, other styles of American Roots Music and his own compositions, alone or in a duo (with violinist Jörg Petersmann) and in the entertaining and informative « concerférence » MISSISSIPPI DELTA, a show about the origins of the blues.
Please contact us for more information. Thank you.
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ANIMATIONS :
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Surrendered by more than fifteen musical instruments, road maps and diverse accessories, Jacques Moury Beauchamp tells and sings about the origins and the history of the blues, from the opening of the Mississippi Territories in 1820 to the official abolition of segregation in 1964, evokes slavery, the cultural interactions in the Southern United States and the emergence of the most influential musical form of the XXth century, a music whose main purpose, mutual sharing, is still very much alive today.
« Mississippi Delta » is a source of musical references. In it, Jacques Moury Beauchamp mentions many well-known names, major figures of blues history, whom he often evokes in detail after the performances during informal conversations with the audience.
The show also gives the opportunity to see up close various instruments and playing techniques typical of the blues, techniques that result from the synthesis of many traditions.
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The press writes about it :
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LA NOUVELLE REPUBLIQUE (City of Tours edition)
All the music we love
Jac Beauchamp, a.k.a Jacques Moury Beauchamp, lives two lives : he is a professional photographer and also a musician. French by birth, American by passion, he lived twenty years in the United States before settling in the Loire Valley.
Maybe this is why he has a taste for names fabricated by assembling two terms : «Bluescapes» is the title of one of his photo exhibits and he gave a «concerférence» to a sold out hall in Savonnières. On stage, a mixed lot of roadmaps from the Mississippi region, guitars and other string instruments, a sort of log cabin evoking slave quarters, a worn-out wooden trunk, a chair and a hat. As soon as he walks on stage, Jac Beauchamp grabs a guitar and sings « That's all right, Mama ». It turns out that he is also an excellent singer… The tone is set. For over an hour, Jac Beauchamp takes his audience alongside the black people who sing while picking cotton for the rich Southern landowners. The crowd savors the music, appreciates the anecdotes and discovers this rural America so far from the dream. « Mississippi Delta » is more than a lecture, it is a real performance paying tribute to the Afro-Americans who, despite their poverty, still enchant us today with their music. We learn that having the blues is not to lament but to share one's own emotions. Powerful emotions instigated by a compelling artist who embraced a totally charmed audience.
LA NOUVELLE REPUBLIQUE (Loir & Cher edition )
Music in photographs with Jacques Moury-Beauchamp
With « le Printemps de la Photographie » festival and artists like photographer/musician Jacques Moury-Beauchamp, music and images are associated in the crucible of a unique transfer technique, in order to produce landscapes of a poor and unexpected America.
Fascinated by the music surging from an uprooted Africa, from slavery and from the bayou, he uses the lines, the lyrics of the blues as captions to his landscapes. He works on them with a photocopier, creating images that evoke Sarah Moon's pointillist photographs or Francis Gammichon's prints. But as soon as we look up a little closer, forgetting such references, we discover, along with the words that give a subtext to each image, a specific America far remote from skyscrapers and media opulence.
LA RENAISSANCE LOCHOISE
La Croix-en-Touraine : the land where the blues began
Storyteller, musician, singer, Jacques Moury Beauchamp is a multitalented artist, passionate about the blues and its history, history that he shared on December 7 with a large public at the Centre Lorin in La Croix. The show, innovative in its concept, half concert, half lecture, fascinated the audience.
« The Blues is the sharing of emotions; it expresses life, with its pains, its struggles and its joys too ». Accompanying himself on six guitars, a banjo, a harmonica and a sansa (an African instrument), Jacques Moury Beauchamp narrated and sang the history of the blues. He knows it well, because he traveled that route during his frequent visits to the United States. For an audience that he won over, he shared it all.
LA NOUVELLE REPUBLIQUE (Eastern Indre & Loire edition)
The « concerférence » captivated the audience
Jacques Moury Beauchamp and his one-man show, created on an innovative concept of combined lecture/concert, transported the audience through the history of the blues.
This is a challenging exercise in which the artist goes from storyteller to historian and then from musician to singer.
Jacques Moury Beauchamp, well inspired by the Mississippi Delta blues, a subject that no doubt fascinates him, captivated the audience for more than an hour by narrating the history of the blues. (…)
After the show, sharing a traditional drink, commentators were all in agreement :
Everyone had enjoyed a pleasant moment, while learning a lot of things. Someone even said « if history could be taught in such lively manner in high school, students would have a great time! ».vec le Printemps de la Photographie et des artistes comme Jacques Moury-Beauchamp, photographe et musicien, la musique et l'image sont associées dans le creuset d'une technique particulière de transfert pour réaliser des paysages d'une Amérique pauvre étonnante.
Passionné par cette musique qui a surgi de l'Afrique déracinée, de l'esclavage et du bayou, il utilise les vers, paroles du blues pour légender les paysages qu'il travaille à la photocopieuse créant des images qui font penser aux photographies pointillistes de Sarah Moon ou aux tirages de Francis Gammichon. Mais dès que l'on s'approche un peu, que l'on oublie ces références, avec les phrases qui sous-titrent chaque réalisation, on y découvre une Amérique particulière loin des gratte-ciels et de l'opulence médiatique.
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OTHER LECTURES AND ANIMATIONS
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"the guitar, American folk music
1890-1940, half a century of shared inovations" |
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| literary and musical evocation of the 1927 Mississippi flood |
Please contact us for more information. Thank you.
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MUSIC :
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4 self produced CDs on sale at concerts, lectures and by mail order :
Solo :
Duo with Jörg Petersmann :
Repertoire : Blues, American Roots and compositions
Information and booking : (33)2 47 57 86 10 or
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PHOTO :
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Some exhibits are available for hire and can be visualized following the links below :
Please contact us for more information. Thank you.
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EXPRESS BIOGRAPHY :
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Like many teenage baby-boomers, Jacques Moury Beauchamp (Jac Beauchamp) learns the guitar by himself. He is soon interested by the American folk music very popular in Europe at the end of the 1960's. At the beginning of the following decade, he plays double bass with the Crazy Dog's Band, a bluegrass band in the Paris area. In 1975 he immigrates to the United States to pursue a professional photography career and deepen his knowledge of the blues. He studies various guitar techniques at the Guitar Study Center in New York City and begins to compose in styles going from blues to country music.
Back in Paris in the early 1990's, he contributes, with his band King Crossing, to the musical scene of the French capital, performing on a regular basis at venues such as the Saint Louis Blues club. He returns frequently to the United States and makes several trips to Mississippi following the steps of the blues pioneers.
The landscapes of his series « Bluescapes » are in the permanent collection of the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Relocating in Touraine in 1999, Jacques Moury Beauchamp gets acquainted with the local musical scene at the open mike sessions of the Crescendo association in Beaulieu-lès-Loches. He plays for several years in the Chédigny blues workshop.
With his band Third Crossing, he performs at the Nuit du Blues festival in Auvers sur Oise, at the Charité sur Loire blues festival and in Le Plessis Trévise.
He continues to contribute to the Loire Valley musical life alone and in a duo.
To share his knowledge of Northern American musical styles, he wrote for specialized magazines (Rock & Folk, Pop Hebdo, JazzHot, SoulBag) and hosted several musical radio programs in Paris and in Amboise.
But for Jacques Moury Beauchamp, nothing compares with the direct contact of a live audience. Since 2007, he performs in a new type of presentation, half lecture, half concert, sharing his passion for the blues through stories, photographs and, of course, through music.
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PROJECTS :
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Three new photo series are currently in progress :
- A new CD of original compositions and
a CD of the songs performed in the lecture/concert "Mississippi Delta"
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VIDEO LINKS :
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Passing on the blues
Documentary film produced by the students of the Grandmont High School (Tours) :
Part one |
Part two |
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Interview
Produced by Doc Pilot :
Part one |
Part two |
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copyright © Jacques Moury Beauchamp
For information on publishing rights, please contact us
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