Jacques Mignault
Jacques is a self-taught keyboard player, bound to twirl intuitively
his long phalanx on all sorts of keyboards. Particularly keen on
technology in general, he uses it freely as a mode of expression. He
first started out on acoustic guitar, at the age of nine. This was the
high point of the Beatles and it definitely influenced his musical
taste, which was later redefined by the likes of progressive rock, jazz-rock and pure jazz artists such as Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and George Duke. After switching to the Hammond B3 and the Farfisa organ, which appealed more to
his Cartesian side, the Fender Rhodes soon became his primal
instrument, and it still is. He later discovered all the diverse aspects of sound synthesis
and computer recording and arranging which quickly became his playing field.
Musically, he has always been drawn to modal jazz rather than the tonal
expressions of traditional jazz. “I prefer fourths to thirds. My music becomes jazz when it
turns to improvisation.” In 1982, he won the first prize of the Roland
synthesizer music contest which counted 750 participants from 22 countries.
Oscar Peterson was on the judge panel. He played for a while with the musicians
from the group “Tchukon” (Slim Williams, Kat Dyson). He also played with
Michel Séguin and in the groups “Agharta” and “Anoosh” with Pierre
Veniot. He worked briefly with singers like Geraldine Hunt, Zachary Richard,
Marc Gabriel and a few others.
As Zen as Jazz can be, Jacques is opening doors to new unexplored sonic experiences. His style? He presents it as smooth jazz,
a qualifier that does not totally do justice to his musical imagination. His latest musical direction is shifting towards Urban Jazz, which has a extra dose of funk and R&B, and is strongly oriented towards composition rather than cover playing. He tells us: "I have long abandoned to dream of playing like the greats, like Herbie or Zawinul, because they are simply the best of the best. But I can express as many emotions with my own personal vocabulary and most important, I am having a extreme amount of pleasure doing it."
Jacques now works as a computer programmer in a language fortuitously called C#. He spends most if not all of his free time working on production and composition, creating as many albums of what he calls "good user friendly music" as possible. Jacques uses the Internet exclusively to promote and distribute his music.