Parfum de Jazz

Parfum de Jazz, which will celebrate its 26th edition in 2025, is a jazz festival in the Drôme provençale region, which originated in the Baronnies and has since spread to the Tricastin area.

Parfum de jazz was born in 1999 under the auspices of the Buis-les-Baronnies town council and its mayor Jean-Pierre Buix, a teacher with whom I had shared the benches of the Valence teacher training college a few decades earlier.
Why not organize a jazz festival in Buis-les-Baronnies, capital of the lime tree? At the end of the 1960s, Jean-Jacques Taïb had created a top-quality vocal and instrumental group that had performed in the Baronnies under the aegis of the Drôme federation of lay organizations and its then general secretary, René Simard. A few seeds were sown.
With no means other than a small subsidy from the commune, the festival took shape over three evenings in the middle of August 1999. A big band of Danish amateur musicians, some of whom had holiday homes in the Baronnies, rounded off this first and very modest edition of the festival.

Parfum de jazz was born! And with it, the desire of a number of my former colleagues from the Ecole Normale to join us as volunteers to help us put on the 2nd edition of the festival. I can't name all these "pioneers", but they'll know who they are...
We can't forget the role of Jean-Pierre Buix, the dynamic mayor of Buis-les-Baronnies, a catalyst of energies, whose loquaciousness electrified the first listeners. At his side were loyal and devoted elected officials, Gérard Jean and André Donze in particular, as well as technical service managers Fabien Baudin and Laurent Corréard, whose hard work and generosity have played a decisive role in the festival's success over the years.

From its beginnings as a three-night event, ten years later the festival took over every day of the week. Then, in response to a request from the mayors of the Tricastin region to associate their town with the festival, our association decided to extend Parfum de jazz by a week in two then three Tricastin towns: La Garde-Adhémar, Pierrelatte and Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. Today, Parfum de jazz occupies the Drôme Provençale jazz scene in the heart of August.

The festival has several features. From the outset, it has invited groups from different currents in the history of jazz, from classical jazz to contemporary jazz. It relies on a large number of volunteers who share a love of jazz, as well as a friendship forged in adolescence and happily continued into adulthood.

This volunteer work, which has grown steadily over the years, has enabled us to devote most of the resources allocated to the organizing association to paying the musicians and organizing the concerts in a highly professional manner. This deliberate choice has enabled us to program top-quality groups in all styles, to keep admission fees reasonable, and to support a team made up entirely of volunteers with a concern for efficiency and shared enjoyment of jazz music.

We're well aware of the difficulties involved in attracting audiences to a touring festival. This is a challenge which is more broadly that of cultural action in rural areas, a cultural action which is based first and foremost on a high-quality offering, and which then implies a work of mediation on the basis of entrance fees acceptable to the greatest number. For example, we offer a €5 entrance fee for under-25s to all concerts.

It seems to us that the challenge of touring has been met, if only because more and more rural communes are interested in hosting a Parfum de jazz concert. To date, we have been able to respond to various requests from communes and associations, accepting contributions of just a few hundred euros. Now more than ever, a quality offering in rural areas requires a pooling of resources, a sharing of the technical constraints posed by the organization of high-quality concerts over a period of one or two weeks.
This is the Parfum de jazz model. It's over twenty years old, and I hope that its thirtieth birthday will be celebrated with even greater enthusiasm.

Alain Brunet
Founder and former president of Parfum de Jazz

Program 2025 :

The 2025 edition opens up to blues and oriental cultures, and to instruments rarely featured in jazz: flute, violin, koto, vibraphone, harp.

Evenings in Tricastin, at 9pm (salle des fêtes and Parc de la Chocolaterie)
July 23: Justina Lee Brown in Pierrelatte
July 24: Sisters in Jazz international in Pierrelatte
July 25: Line & Borders in Donzère
July 26: Elliavir in Donzère

Jazz gourmand" concerts at 7pm before the evening concerts - free admission:
July 23: Sycamore Sisters in Pierrelatte
July 24: Glomeris in Pierrelatte
July 25: Zelia trio in Donzère
July 26: Tigres et Canapés in Donzère

Jazz in the Village" concerts at 6pm in the heart of our villages - free admission
July 18: Sycamore Sisters in Montségur sur Lauzon
July 21: Moustik Haterz in La Garde Adhemar
July 22: Donkey Vibe quartet in Saint-Restitut

Baronnies evenings, at 9pm (Théâtre de Verdure de la Palun)
August 13: Julie Campiche quartet in Mollans sur Ouvèze
August 14: Saiyoki Trio in Buis les Baronnies
August 15: Solaxis in Buis les Baronnies
August 16: Ylian Casanares in Buis les Baronnies

Jazz gourmand" concerts at 7pm before certain evening concerts - free admission:
August 14: Ladiz in Buis les Baronnies
August 15: Becky & The Pop Up Orchestra - Trio in Buis les Baronnies
August 16: Little Guinguette Trio in Buis les Baronnies

All "Jazz au village" concerts are at 6 pm and free of charge, only Nyons on August 12 is at 9 pm and free of charge.
August 07: Yas Trio at the Beauvoisin guinguette
August 08: Fuz4tet at St Auban sur l'Ouvèze
August 09: Electravoice in St Sauveur Gouvernet
August 11: Jet Whistle in Montbrun les Bains
August 12: What Elle's in Nyons

August 14 and 15: Writing workshop at 16:30, Buis les Baronnies