Jean-Christophe Béney

Jean-christophe Béney was born October 2nd, 1969, in Boulogne- Billancourt, near Paris. His parents being classical musicians, he was always in touch with the world of music. Nevertheless, his first great passion was drawing, and especially cartoons, which he started making as soon as he was able to read and write, and which fed his imagination all during his childhood. He discovered jazz music at the age of 9 or 10. His father conducted a big band and Jean-christophe was always in the first row during concerts. At that time he decided to start studying one of the horns, and after first thinking about trombone, he opted for saxophone. For years he lived with both of these passions. After high school when he had to decide which studies to take, he chose drawing. He went to the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, but after two years, decided to stop and dedicate himself to music instead. He started musical studies again, first at the Ecole Nationale de Musique d'Evry, and then, from 1993 to 1996, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in François Jeanneau's jazz course. He began working as a professional musician in 1994. At that time he started to frequent jazz clubs and to meet a lot of musicians from the Parisian jazz scene. Since then, his career has been shared between being a sideman, and a more personal activity as composer and band leader. As a sideman he has played, for example, in the bands of François Théberge, Laurent Coq, Vincent Artaud, Stéphane and Lionel Belmondo, Patrice Caratini, Denzal Sinclaire, Michel Donato, Jean-Pierre Zanella, Laïka Fatien, Nicolas Folmer, Andy Emler's Mégaoctet, the Paris Jazz Big Band, the POM, Antoine Hervé's Big Band, Christophe Dal Sasso's Big Band, Laurent Cugny's Big Band Lumière … As a band leader, most of time Jean-christophe has chosen the classical quartet: sax-piano-bass-drums. The team has varied a lot from period to period. We can cite for example Pierre de Bethmann, Baptiste Trotignon, Steve Amirault, John Roney or Laurent Coq on piano; Vincent Artaud, Clovis Nicolas, Jules Bik

Gear

Yamaha sax Vandoren reeds and mouthpieces

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