Stéphane Seva is the youngest member of the Paris Washboard, and the washboard player of the new generation. Through endless and vastly different musical encounters – a duo with a double-neck guitarist, for example, accompanying Benin music with harp and African drums, or scraping the corrugated metal plate to electro music with a didgeridoo player – he is writing the history of his instrument. Stéphane has two strings to his bow – singing and playing the washboard. He began his musical career with his father, playing the washboard in a traditional jazz band. Today he’s recognized as one of the specialists in France in this highly original instrument. At the same time he studied singing with the American jazz singer, Sarah Lazarus. In 2007 as a singer in an octet he recorded an album entitled ‘To Frank and Ray’, a homage to Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles. Since 1998 he has made regular appearances at jazz festivals and Parisian jazz clubs with his band ‘Swing Ondulé’, in the line-up ‘Lancelot et ses Chevaliers’ or accompanying a wide variety of musicians such as Daniel Huck or Ludovic de Preisac.
