Place Masséna at dusk has a particular quality of light — the ochre facades of the surrounding arcades catch the last warmth of a July evening, the fountains hold their breath, and the crowd that gathers here tends to arrive not in haste but in a kind of unhurried anticipation. Nice knows how to receive a summer night. It has been practising for decades.
On 25 July 2026, that square becomes the stage for something rather specific: The Getdown, a collective built around two instruments that, between them, have driven more dance floors and church halls than almost any other combination in the jazz tradition. Organist Laurent Coulondre and drummer Arnaud Dolmen lead the group, and the formula they have assembled — organ, drums, Fender bass, piano, and keyboards — is described by the collective itself as 'totalement inédite': entirely new. That is a bold claim in a city that has been hosting jazz since 1948, but the instrumentation alone gives it credibility.
The Weight of the Low End
The Hammond organ and the drum kit share a history that runs from the soul-jazz clubs of 1960s Harlem through the funk bassements of New Orleans and into the contemporary European jazz scene. What makes The Getdown's approach worth attention is the density of the keyboard palette they bring to bear. Where a classic organ trio relies on the organist's left hand to simulate a bass line, this collective separates those functions — Fender bass, piano, and additional keyboards each occupy their own register, their own voice. The result, in theory and in practice, is a sound with genuine low-end weight and harmonic complexity simultaneously, rather than one traded off against the other.
Laurent Coulondre is a recognised figure in contemporary French jazz, an organist whose work sits at the intersection of jazz tradition and more contemporary rhythmic vocabularies. Arnaud Dolmen, born in Guadeloupe, brings a percussive sensibility shaped by the Antillean musical tradition — gwoka, gwo ka rhythms — alongside his jazz formation. That combination of influences is not incidental. It is, in many ways, the engine of what The Getdown does.
'Une formule totalement inédite de l'orgue, de la batterie, du Fender, du piano, des claviers.' — The Getdown collective
Nice Jazz Festival and the Masséna Stage
The Nice Jazz Festival holds a particular place in European music culture. Founded in 1948, it is among the oldest jazz festivals on the continent, and Place Masséna — the Scène Masséna — is its most open, most democratic venue. No seated rows, no enclosed garden: just the square, the sky, and the sound travelling out across the fountains toward the Promenade du Paillon. The audience that assembles here on any given evening is a reliable cross-section of the city itself: locals who have been coming for years, visitors who wandered in from the old town, jazz devotees who planned the trip months in advance.
For a collective whose music is built on rhythm and groove, the outdoor setting is not a compromise but a condition. The Getdown's sound, with its layered keyboards and Dolmen's drumming, is the kind of music that benefits from open air — it needs room to breathe, and Place Masséna gives it that.
Practical matters: the festival's full programme and ticketing details are available at nicejazzfest.fr. The Scène Masséna is located at Place Masséna, 06000 Nice, easily reached on foot from the old town or by tram.
Nice in late July is warm in the way that only the Côte d'Azur manages — not oppressive, but settled, certain of itself. The light goes slowly. By the time the organ notes of The Getdown begin to move across the square, the sky will have shifted through three or four shades of blue that no photograph quite captures. That, in the end, is what draws people back to this festival year after year: not just the music, but the precise conditions in which it is heard.