Paul Lay

Born in Orthez (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France) on July 22, 1984, Paul Lay began learning the piano with his family at the age of five, and went on to study with François Théberge and Glenn Ferris at the conservatories of Toulouse and Paris, before enriching his technique with Riccardo Del Fra, whose quintet he joined. Winner of the Concours international piano-jazz Martial Solal (2006) and the Concours national de jazz de La Défense (2008), he forms the Paul Lay Trio and composes a first album called Unveiling (2010), then succeeds Benjamin Moussay in the experimental group Ping Machine (2012-2016). After the release of the solo album Mikado in 2014, awarded a Grand Prix du jazz by the Académie Charles-Cros, and a triumph at the Moscow International Piano-Jazz Competition (2015), Paul Lay forms a new trio with singer Isabel Sörling and double bassist Simon Tailleu on the Provençal-sounding song album Alcazar Memories (2017), then another with Clemens van der Freen and his ex-professor Dré Pallemaerts on The Party (2017), inspired by the Blake Edwards film. Awarded the Prix Django Reinhardt by the Académie du Jazz in 2016, Paul Lay collaborates with trumpeter Eric Le Lann on the Louis Armstrong tribute Thanks a Million (2018), before reuniting with his favored partners on Deep Rivers (2020), which celebrates the first songs of jazz. After winning the Victoire du Jazz in 2020, Paul Lay interprets compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven in his own way on Full Solo (2021), followed by the Blue in Green EP dedicated to Bill Evans and the concept album L'Odyssée de Paul Lay (2024), based on Homer's story. The inventive pianist returns as a trio, this time accompanied by Joël Suhubiette's chamber choir Les Éléments, for the album Waves of Light (2026), inspired by poems by Pablo Neruda, Victor Hugo, Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson.