As a seasoned jazz musician, Benjamin Petit is well skilled in the art of impromptu creation. However, there can’t be too many purveyors of the improvisatory art form who combine their evening gigging and dates in recording studios with a daytime job involving ferrying people across the world far above the clouds.
The 47-year-old French saxophonist is a commercial airline pilot who works on long haul flights for Air France. Thankfully, at some stage, he managed to cut down on his shift so that he could spend more time writing charts and blowing his horn with like-minded musical pals. Mind you, he won’t be in the cockpit, or even making good use of his employer’s services, when he pops over here to take his place in the forthcoming slot of the 2025- 2026 Hot Jazz series, which goes by the name of From Rio to Havana and takes in eight shows across the country, from October 25-November 1.
Seems there was a security-sensitive matter to be negotiated. “I offered the Hot Jazz organization to fly with an Air France flight because I knew I could facilitate a little bit the transfer,” Petit notes. “But they said there’s no way we can guarantee, 100%, you’re going to be there for the first show.”
Having been unable to return home from Europe myself on a couple of occasions in the past year, I can appreciate that concern.
Hopefully all will be – at least relatively – quiet on the Gaza, Iranian, and other fronts later this month, and Petit will make it over here, to take his place alongside Brazilian-Israeli vocalist Silvina Escapa, Cuban pianist Chuchito Valdes, and an Israeli rhythm section of bass guitar player-musical director Fernando Knopf and drummer Israel Biton, with Shimon Greenstein providing the requisite percussion lines.
Artistic projects
Although Petit’s aviatic vocation has eaten into his artistic pursuit time, it has, on occasion, generated some gigging opportunities.
“I lived in London for two years. I was based at Gatwick Airport,” he recalls. “I played a couple of times at the Troy Bar venue in Shoreditch. I hosted jam sessions there with London-based musicians. I also played once or twice at [famed veteran London jazz club] Ronnie Scott’s.”
Even so, juggling piloting, family, and music-making all these years perhaps goes some way to explaining why Petit’s discography as leader features just three releases thus far, albeit with a host of contributions to other projects as a sideman. His debut recording, 5 Degrés Sud, came out in 2017, followed by Dear John five years later.
One of the most valuable resources any artist can draw on, particularly in the on-the-spot creation area of the music industry, is having a multifaceted, layered personal tale to fuel one’s musicianship. Petit has that in spades.
“My own family is a mix of cultures and religions,” he says. “That probably explains who I am today.” It also sheds some light on his choice of musical path, taking a jazz road that embraces numerous styles, textures, colors, and cultural baggage.
“I am not a religious person, and I am very open to many cultures and differences. I have pretty much every religion in my family,” he chuckles. “My mum is from Algeria. On her side, half of the family is from a Jewish background and half is from a Muslim background. My dad is from a Catholic family. I am not religious myself – both my parents were scientists and had a scientific mindset – but I feel comfortable when I meet Jewish people and Muslims.”
Musical style
That eclectic outlook has kept Petit on the multicultural exploratory trail and feeds into his music. “She Waits,” off his latest album, Requiem for a Nomad King, Vol.1, which came out earlier this year, is a compelling point in case.
“Using pentatonic scales, I think I had in mind, somewhere in my twisted brain, Japanese music with all those pentatonic melodies,” Petit explains. “The melody is built to suggest a Japanese vibe. But most of the things in my life are cultural mixes of ideas, and I wanted this song to be kind of the same. I wanted it to be a weird mix of Japanese melodies falling into a kind of African background, rhythmically.”
The cultural spread may provide Petit with a richly nuanced platform, but he tends to bring his own voice to the fray too. “There is always some kind of opening at some point in the song. It’s something I like to do. I start quite simply and then, at some point, I open it all to create an element of surprise.” That is a leitmotif of the latest release, although he never strays too far from his musical home base. “The end of the song [“She Waits”] is more jazzy, with a bit more rich harmonies. The chords are a little more jazzy at the end.”
I noted that the robust lyrical content of much of Petit’s work is reminiscent of a melodic approach that colors much of the output of Israeli jazz musicians. That comes across palpably in “Burning Roads” on Requiem for a Nomad King, Vol.1. Seems I’d hit the nail on the head. “That’s not the first time I’ve been told that,” he laughs, adding that it was a natural rather than an intentional cerebral development for him.
“Without any specific knowledge of his music, it seems like Avishai Cohen, the [internationally renowned Israeli] bass player, did influence me more than I was expecting. I’ve listened to a couple of his songs, but I’m not a specialist [in Cohen’s oeuvre], he’s not the kind of artist that I have all his albums in my playlist. But I listen a lot more to people like [veteran American reed players] Branford Marsalis and Kenny Garrett. Branford is an enormous influence on me, in his mindset and his way of creating music. Not so much as a saxophone player, more as a composer.” Marsalis’s portfolio also incorporates a broad sweep of styles and genres, including classical music.
As the Hot Jazz tour title suggests, Petit also has a soft spot for Latin music. “I like Brazilian music, and there are plenty of Brazilian musicians in Paris, and I get to jam on a few standards with them. I wouldn’t say I am a specialist, but I appreciate the great Brazilian standards.”
Having Valdes by his side on stage here will surely help keep Petit and the rest of the band on track. The Cuban pianist is heir to a veritable musical dynasty.
His grandfather was famed ivory tickler Bebo Valdes, and his dad is the celebrated, now 84-year-old pianist, bandleader, and composer Chucho Valdes. The Hot Jazz audiences can look forward to an eclectic program of numbers that hail from Cuban and Brazilian climes, as well as some other seasonings. “There will be a mix of genres and cultures. It will be a sort of Cuban meets Brazil meets Paris,” Petit says.
With the French capital home to musicians from across the globe, particularly artists informed by numerous African rhythms and textures, some of whom Petit gets to play with, From Rio to Havana should be a feast of colors and sounds tailored to tug on the heartstrings and get the toes tapping.
For tickets and more information: (03) 573-3001 and eng.hotjazz.co.il/from-havana-to-rio-october-25th-november-1st-2025/