NAMAS
Who Is NAMAS? The French Jazz Trio You Need to Know
NAMAS is a French jazz trio from Rennes, Brittany, consisting of pianist and keyboardist Gaël Bourgeault, upright bassist Léo Debroise, and drummer Victor Dubois. They are among the most distinctive voices in contemporary French jazz — a trio that takes acoustic instruments and pushes them into electronic and hip-hop territory without losing any of the depth, warmth, or spontaneity that makes jazz vital.
In the four years since their formation in 2021, NAMAS have released two albums, won the Golden Jazz Trophy twice, been selected as finalists for the Rezzo Jazz à Vienne 2026 (the most important emerging artist competition in French jazz), performed at venues across France and Belgium, and been reviewed with genuine enthusiasm by the international jazz press. They are building one of the most distinctive sounds on the French scene right now — and not many people outside France know them yet.
Not jazz as you know it. Jazz as it could be. NAMAS treat acoustic instruments as if they were electronic: the piano reverberates like a synthesizer, the upright bass pulses like a bass guitar, the drums breathe with hip-hop cadence. The result is unmistakably jazz in its spontaneity and conversation between instruments — and unmistakably contemporary in its rhythmic language and sonic ambition.
Born During Lockdown: A Conservatoire Meeting in a Rennes Manor
NAMAS was born during the Covid lockdown of 2020 to 2021, in a room of an old Rennes manor house whose walls were covered in psychedelic tapestry. Three young students from the Conservatoire de Rennes — confined, with time, instruments, and the instinct to play — began improvising together. A cup of tea going cold in the corner, incense in the air. No agenda, no pressure, no label. They composed their earliest pieces “without pretension, for the pleasure of it,” as Gaël Bourgeault later described.
The origin of the name NAMAS is rooted in this spirit: it draws from the Sanskrit greeting “Namaste” — a recognition of the light in the other, a meeting of equals. For a trio built entirely on listening and conversation between instruments, the name captures something essential about how they make music.
What began in a locked-down manor room evolved rapidly into a professional project. The three musicians recorded their debut album Tapestry at the Studio du Faune in Saint-Uniac, Brittany, in July 2021 — barely a year after their first session together. Released on vinyl on October 21, 2022, it was their introduction to the world: raw, exploratory, and already bearing the signature of a band that knew what it was doing.
Meet the Three Members of NAMAS
Their Sound: Where Post-Jazz Meets Hip-Hop and the Atlantic Coast
The most honest description of NAMAS’s music is “post-jazz” — a term the band themselves use to describe where they sit. It acknowledges the jazz tradition from which they come (acoustic instruments, improvisation, harmonic sophistication, the conversation between players) while refusing to be limited by it.
Their primary influences are three: J Dilla, the Detroit hip-hop producer whose slanted, imprecise rhythms revolutionized what a groove could sound like; the London jazz scene of the 2010s (Nubya Garcia, Yussef Kamaal, Kokoroko, Moses Boyd) — which proved that jazz could absorb Afrobeats, grime, and electronic music without losing its spontaneity; and the Atlantic coast they grew up on, which adds something harder to define — a particular quality of space, of distance, of melancholy in major keys that runs through Breton music of all traditions.
What makes NAMAS distinctively French in this context is their relationship to melody. French jazz, from Django Reinhardt to the contemporary generation, has always prioritized melodic lyricism — the song within the improvisation. NAMAS carry this tradition even when the groove is at its hardest. The melodies are always there, always hummable, always emotionally grounded.
Discography
Tapestry was the album NAMAS made before they knew they were making an album — which is the best possible way to make a first album. Recorded at the Studio du Faune in Saint-Uniac, Brittany in July 2021, barely a year after the trio formed during lockdown, it carries the energy of musicians who are playing for the discovery of it. The album’s title is not incidental: it was conceived in the tapestry-covered room of the Rennes manor where the trio first improvised together.
The mix was handled by Franck Martin at Erzulie Magic Studio (who would go on to engineer all their subsequent work), and the mastering by Fred Wolf at Definitive Mastering. The album features guest vocals by Kat White on track three and guitar by Martin Chenu Noury on track four — early signs of a band that was never interested in staying within its own walls. Released exclusively on vinyl, Tapestry introduced NAMAS as a group that understood both the heritage of jazz and the language of the moment.
Tonight is the declaration. Where Tapestry was a diary, Tonight is a manifesto — eight tracks across forty minutes in which NAMAS state, with full confidence, what kind of band they are and what kind of music they intend to make. The album takes acoustic instruments and pushes them into electronic territory without losing any of their depth: the piano has the reverb of a synthesizer, the upright bass has the weight of a bass guitar, and the drums breathe with the particular rhythmic hesitancy of J Dilla’s sampled beats.
The production marks a significant step forward from Tapestry. Recorded across three locations — Studio des Bruères in Poitiers, Namas house in Rennes (the spirit of the lockdown origin preserved), and Erzulie Magic Studio — and mastered at the legendary Studios Ferber in Paris (the studio where Daft Punk, Serge Gainsbourg, and many of the most important French recordings of the past four decades were made), Tonight has the sonic scale of an international release. Blue-in-Green:RADIO described it as “a distinctive style that finds a way to joyously flourish within the ambiguity of it all.”
The album includes the single “Don’t Rush” featuring Keysuna, a neo-soul vocalist whose own project BOUNDS (2025) has been receiving international attention — another sign of NAMAS’s instinct for finding the right collaborators. Also included is “Untitled,” released as a digital single on February 13, 2026, two weeks before the album, which gave existing fans their first taste of the new direction.
NAMAS: Official Videos
