Jacques Bolognesi, French Jazz Trombonist and Accordionist, Dies at 79

Jacques Bolognesi, the French trombonist and accordionist known to colleagues as Bolo, has died at the age of 79, Jazz Magazine reported on Oct. 31. He would have turned 80 on Jan. 6. The Paris jazz station TSF Jazz and the Dutch portal jazz.nl also carried tributes in the days that followed.

Bolognesi began on accordion before taking up the trombone. According to jazz.nl, he won a first prize on trombone at the Paris Conservatory in 1969 and that year joined the big bands of Claude Cagnasso, later working with Ivan Jullien and Claude Bolling. He became a sought-after section and solo player in French large ensembles and, in Franck Bergerot's Jazz Magazine tribute, is remembered alongside Hamid Belhocine in Patrice Caratini's Onztet and as a neighbor in Martial Solal's Dodecaband on Duke Ellington repertoire in 1997.

He also led the Big Band du Lundi, later known as Caravanserail, for which he wrote arrangements. The band's 1989 album Caravanserail, on the Open label, marked an early French studio appearance by the young pianist Bojan Z, according to jazz.nl. In 1987 Bolognesi joined Antoine Hervé's Orchestre National de Jazz, where he brought the accordion back into his public playing with an extended solo on "Sous les lofts de Paris," a detail confirmed by Arnaud Merlin in Bergerot's piece.

From then on he moved between the two instruments. He formed the Bolovaris Quartet, a two-accordion group with Yves Torchinsky or Jean-Philippe Viret and Jacques Mahieux, and in 2007 recorded the album Hermetotico with guitarist Marc Fosset, playing accordion in a trio setting. Jazz Magazine and TSF Jazz also note collaborations with Michel Legrand, Ute Lemper, Cesária Évora, François Hardy, Jacques Higelin, Paul Simon and others.

Bergerot recalls recruiting Bolognesi, with singer Cathy Renoir and guitarist Didi Duprat, for the Paris Musette accordion anthology on the La Lichère label, underlining how the musician's first instrument remained part of his identity even after decades as a trombonist. No cause of death was given in the Jazz Magazine notice.