Julien Lourau

Person · Male

Julien Lourau

From
France
Since
1970–present
Releases
14
  • jazz
  • electronic
  • nu jazz

About

Julien Lourau (born 3/2/1970) is a French jazz saxophonist. He is the son of sociologist René Lourau.

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Julien Lourau made his début in the group Trash Corporation with guitarist Noël Akchoté and pianist Bojan Zulfikarpasic. He also founded the group Olympic Gramofon with Sébastien Martel, Vincent Ségal, Eric Löhrer, Cyril Atef, and DJ Shalom.
In 1992, Julien Lourau won the first soloist prize in La Défense and went on to set up his Groove Gang.
In 1999, he experimented with electronic music for his album Gambit which attracted a following from young French people and led to a number of successful concerts. He won that year's jazz trophy at the "Victoires de la Musique" awards. He returned to a more traditional jazz in 2002 with the album The rise, regarded as his most mature album. 2007 saw the release of Julien Lourau vs Rumbabierta which combines Lourau's avant-garde jazz with Afro-Cuban sounds. Julien Lourau also collaborated with the hip hop dance collectif le Groove Gang in a show untitled « Come fly with us ». By doing so, he encountered the French hip hop dance pioneer Bintou Demébélé, who was at the moment a member of the Groove Gang. Julien Lourau will thereafter invite her to dance at some of his concerts.
His composition includes forms absorbed from Latin, African, Caribbean and European folk music.

From Julien Lourau on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Member of

Discography

Albums 13
EPs 1

Links

Collaboration

Identifiers

ISNI
0000000055169197

Data from MusicBrainz, saved 13 Nov 2026. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, covers from the Cover Art Archive and Apple Music.