Album Title: Blossom

Release Date: 30 January 2026

Blossom, the new album by composers and arrangers Airelle Besson (trumpet) and Lionel Suarez(accordion), is a series of duets written and refined over the ten years they have played together as a duo. This new album brings Paris-born trumpeter Airelle Besson once again into the musical foreground, alongside the virtuoso French accordionist Lionel Suarez. Blossom will be released on 30th January 2026 on Bretelles Prod / Papillon Jaune.

A series of trumpet and accordion duets may seem unusual, but Besson and Suarez dispel that notion as the music unfolds naturally. At times hushed and intimate, often centred on the melody with clear understated lyricism, the duo always keeps their balance through the contrast, dynamic and rhythm of their dialogue.

Multi-award-winning Besson (French Musician of the Year by the Jazz Award Academy and Jazz Revelation of the Year at Les Victoires du Jazz, the French Grammys), who made a name for herself on the European jazz scene with her clear and powerful playing is now a much sought-after side-woman, as well as leader and established composer. Suarez has worked with a prestigious array of artists including Richard Bona, Didier Lockwood and Charles Aznavour. Through the many artistic fields he has traversed – singing, theatre, cinema – one pathway remains unbroken, that of jazz. Together, they are a formidable duo, combining the brilliance and mellow tones of both the trumpet and accordion.

The two musicians first met twenty years ago on Laurent Cugny’s jazz opera project, La Tectonique des nuages. They continued working together in the Quarteto Gardel and began playing as a duo in 2016. So, their decision to record an album together was the fruit of rich exchanges and a well-developed repertoire. For Besson it meant stepping away from the long lineage of trumpet-piano duos and drawing on her experience of duetting with Nelson Veras and her collaboration with Hammond organist Rhoda Scott to appreciate the interplay possible with the accordion.

Blossom begins with the title track and the first piece they ever played together and is a light and immediate song composed by Besson. Also composed by Besson are Kyoto dans la brume, inspired by a stay in the imperial city, and La Course, originally written for three slapstick short films by Fatty Arbuckle starring Buster Keaton. Suarez’s composition Sans laisser d’adresse, was initially written for a stage play Ici Nougaro, and his Le jour J à l’heure H for a film by director Jean-Henri Meunier. Les Tuiles bleues is a nod to Suarez’s late friend, Malagasy accordionist and singer, Régis Gizavo.

Three pieces came to life in the studio at the end of the recording session: two spontaneous co-creations Lontano and Résonances, and De passage, a trumpet solo that serves as an introduction, ending naturally on the first note of Les Tuiles bleues. There are also three covers on the album; Answer Me by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch, which was recorded twice by Keith Jarrett – who Besson cites as a major influence – during his final European tour in 2016; Carla Bley’s Ida Lupino and Au Lait, by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. The result is Blossom, a highly accomplished album on which trumpet and accordion shine in equal measure.