Henri Texier

Born in Paris in 1945, Henri Texier emerged on the French jazz scene in the 1960s as a double-bass player, composer and bandleader. Initially active alongside François Jeanneau, Jean-Luc Ponty and Aldo Romano, he later took part in projects led by Don Cherry at a time when post-bop, free jazz and European forms of improvisation largely intersected. His double-bass playing—mobile, melodic and firmly anchored in the rhythm—supports music that blends written material and improvised space, with modal colours and echoes of traditional music. From the 1970s onward, Texier increasingly developed his own groups, often quartets or quintets, and built a personal repertoire evidenced by albums such as Amir (1976), Varech (1977), An Indian’s Week (1987) and Mosaic Man (2007). Remaining active on French and European stages, he has also worked with musicians from several generations, adopting an acoustic jazz approach open to exchanges between continents and to collective dynamics.