Jimmy Giuffre was one of the great, quietly innovative figures of modern jazz. In May 1968, Philippe Carles devoted a now-legendary feature to him in Jazz Magazine: Jimmy Plays Free.

This rare text remains one of the few major works in French devoted to the art of the American clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and improviser. Frémeaux is now republishing it, enriched by a second section written by Daniel Baillon. In two voices, spanning the years 1968 to 2026, this book traces the journey of a musician who chose rigor over ease, counterpoint over spectacle, and inner freedom over the fashions of the moment. A tribute, an investigation, and an essential rediscovery.
Patrick FRÉMEAUX

Philippe Carles (1941–2023), editor-in-chief of Jazz Magazine and a producer at France Musique for nearly forty years, was also the author, with J.-L. Comolli, of two seminal works: Free Jazz Black Power and Nouveau Dictionnaire du jazz.

Daniel Baillon, a professor of literature, held several positions abroad as a cultural attaché. Those years gave him the opportunity to deepen his longstanding passion for jazz, nurtured by his friendship with André Jaume and Philippe Carles.

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