A Joyous Celebration

Michael Doucet avec Lâcher Prise let things happen organically

BY DAN WILLGING

Side projects involving your favorite musicians are often intriguing and a growth experience for the musician and attentive listener. BeauSoleil’s fiddling front man Michael Doucet is certainly no stranger to side projects. Besides introducing his woefully underrepresented, often misunderstood Cajun cultural music across the globe,

Doucet has had a litany of side projects to whet his insatiable musical appetite over the decades. Recently, in the fall of 2022, Bay Area fiddler Tom Rigney released the second installment of the Doucet-Rigney alliance, the fiery Roll On , backed by Rigney’s Flambeau squadron. In late February, Doucet united with another ensemble, Fiddler 4, a supergroup of acclaimed fiddlers, bluegrass innovator Darol Anger, Appalachian Fiddler Bruce Molksy, and cellist Rashad Eggleston, at Seattle’s Wintergrass Festival. It was the first time they had played together since touring behind the band’s only recording, 2002’s Grammy-nominated, eponymously titled release.

These days Doucet is equally stoked by another one of his ensembles, the sans accordion Lâcher Prise avec Michael Doucet, that plays a wide arrange of original and Louisiana material beyond the BeauSoleil canon. “I think this new group kicks ass,” says Doucet about the group that includes guitarist Chad Viator and bassist Chris French from Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars.

Lâcher Prise, French for the Buddhist concept of “letting go,” refers to being free of inhibitions and restrictions. It was Mardi Gras day 2018 when the seeds were sown. Doucet, by chance, recognized a wigged Sarah Quintana outside a French Quarter bar, and she recognized his fluffy white hair protruding from his mask. Eventually, the two broached the subject of music. She, in turn, sent him some original material, which led to getting together and jamming. From the first song, everything clicked immediately. Amazingly, the two played their first gig a week later. Quintana was just the person Doucet was looking for.

From there, Doucet built the rest of the group. He knew guitarist Chad Viator since the early millennium through Doucet’s eldest son Mathew and played a few songs at Festival International (circa 2010) backed by The Hub City Allstars. It wasn’t until 2016, when Viator really got to know the elder Doucet while recording a song, “Sois L’Amour,” by Ashana Sophia, a Hawaii native then residing in Lafayette. She wanted to fuse traditional Cajun sounds with Kirtan, something Viator refers to as “yoga chant music.” Viator pegged Doucet as the perfect guy for such a collaboration.

“I brought him into the studio, and we just hit it off,” says Viator. “And then we just started playing without any labels on anything.”

According to Viator, Doucet meeting was when things began to get more official in becoming a group. “He just called me up one day, he’s like, ‘Hey, I want to make an album.’” Viator recalls. “There was no Lâcher Prise at the time. I was like, okay, and, and we booked it.”

The recording was completed in two-and-ahalf-days at nearby Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana. Looking back, Viator wonders if he overacted by bringing everything in charts. “I didn’t want to waste any time in there,” Viator explains. But a major turning point for the group occurred while recording the last song, “Abandonne,” a soft and tender Doucet original, fashioning a gorgeous fiddle line and Quintana’s ethereal vocals.

“At the end of the session, we had a little bit extra time and we just said, let’s get out of the isolation booth,” Viator recalls. “Let’s come into the main room and just play music. And we did ‘Abandonne,’ which is on the album that way. Everyone had the most fun with that one and it just felt really good because we were performing. We were all looking at each other’s fingers as we played. Chris French comes from classical music background, so he enjoys playing that way, much like a classical ensemble plays together as a group, as opposed to separate studio booths. And [jazz drummer] Jim [Kolacek] is good at that too.”

The group played around Lafayette and did a showcase at the Folk Alliance Conference held in New Orleans in January 2020. But as everything else shuttered in March 2020 by COVID, Lâcher Prise wasn’t spared either. “C’mon, the album came out on my birthday, Valentine’s Day 2020,” Doucet says. “We had a California tour, a Louisiana tour. We were going to play with Preservation Hall. We were going to go up to New York, do Bob’s Pub and all that stuff, right down the drain, gone, and so was the record.”

Sometime during the pandemic downtime, Quintana went to school to become a speech therapist, but she still guests occasionally with the group.

In planning Lâcher Prise’s next record, Viator sees it taking place entirely like it did on “Abandonne.” “No isolation booths, headphones, just live performances,” Viator explains. “And then assimilate what we have and try to make that into the final product. That’s the way Michael really operates best. Through the next album, I’ve been trying to get at the core of what inspires him, what makes him play well, and what makes him happy. I’m just going to do that because the music should feel joyous. It should be a celebration, and you have to feel that when you’re performing. If you’re doing something 20 times and are getting frustrated, then the inspiration is gone.”

Viator says Doucet will come over every week or so, and they’ll sit around, talk, and play music. “If we have a motto, it’s the idea of not overthinking, let things happen organically,” Viator says. “There’s no reason to aim for success. There’s no reason to make something into anything other than what it is. And that’s pretty much the concept of what this group is, which can be challenging.”

Viator describes the process as lots of experimentation, trying to find what will fit the group, culling from all of Doucet’s vast influences that are not just limited to Cajun but encompasses Caribbean, African, New Orleans R&B, rock ’n’ roll and traditional jazz. “So, we’ll play music from all those things, but never intentionally try to pull it off ‘correctly,’” Viator says. “Michael interprets it in the moment but that changes from performance to performance. Tempos and keys and things will change.” Viator records these sessions and then revisits them, looking for something unexpected, like a catchy groove or a particular lyric to be examined later.

Doucet and Viator also play as a duo around Lafayette, something the fiddler says is “hysterical. It’s a gig where nobody listens, but we have a great time.” As accomplished a guitarist Viator is, he describes it as being more challenging for him. “The guitar in the duo setting becomes the drum and the chordal instrument, and it can be melodic,” Viator explains. “So, there’s more responsibility, but at the same time, I enjoy it.”

Though a lot of things are still being discussed by Doucet and Viator for Lâche Prise’s upcoming Jazz Fest show and the next recording, one desire of Viator’s would be to get to the place where all musicians read each other’s minds during a performance. “That’s a beautiful thing. The music becomes extraordinarily tight and does something amazing,” says Viator. So yeah, I guess [Doucet] wants to be in an uncomfortable place.”

“I don’t like Xeroxed music,” Doucet says. “We’re not out to prove anything. Unfortunately, they don’t have a category because it’s not even experimental. It’s stuff we like, and it’s all from Louisiana, and that’s how we do it.” O