As he rubs many accordionists, he wants to see his son play. Although having lost his sight at the age of 5 (genetic problem), the little Marcel is left with an accordion in his hands when he is only 6 years old. Four years later he begins to accompany his father in country balls with one of his brothers on drums; Marcel is of course brought up in the love of music; Because if his father likes Django, the idol of the community, he is also a lover of American jazz; with him, Marcel discovers Sinatra, Nat king Cole, Ellington … but playing the accordion in the 70s, when the instrument is relegated to the commercial register, you immediately rank in the category of nerds, even if you like Art Van Damme, Gus Viseur or Marcel Azzola, working hard to decipher their pieces.
At the end of adolescence, Marcel abandons a time accordion in favor of an electric bass. Engaged in the Jacky Coulé Variety Orchestra, he performed at Niederbronn Casino; for four years he discovers and learns at the same time all the jazz standards within this orchestra. In the 80s he is interested in synthesizers, playing in various rock bands or varieties. These fifteen years of bells were still a solid school, allowing Marcel to be comfortable in all styles and everywhere at home in music; not to mention family reunions and parties where music is a daily sharing.
If Marcel started composing in the mid-80s, without ever having learned the theory, it was not until 1996 that he recorded « Vago » his first record as a leader, on which he signed most of the compositions and let his explosions multiply. talents. Having inherited from his father the faculty of not being content to stay in a single genre of music, Marcel announces here what will be a constant of his approach: his ability to propose different musical universes while keeping a real homogeneity. Sideman highly sought after, Marcel multiplies meetings and experiences. The essential for him being to play in public, he will share the stage with partners who are mostly his friends: guitarists Wawau Adler (participates in albums « Roots » in 2006 and 2007), Tchavolo, Dorado, Engé and Railo Helmstetter, accordionists Jean-Louis Matinier, Frédéric Schlick (Marcel will be one of his guests on « Jazz nuances » in 96), René Sopa (who will be inviting him on « Carinhos tango », recorded in 2008), Raul Barboza (Schiltigheim’s White Horse in 2000), Azzola the following year in the same place, saxophonist Franck Wolf and James Carter, violinist Costel Nitescu and bassist Gilles Coquard who will invite him on « Reïsa », a disc on which he meets Mino Cinélu and Bireli Lagrène … the list is long and not exhaustive.
An open and curious musician, Marcel likes Django and Viseur, of course, but also Art Van Damme, Piazzolla, Bach, the great American jazzmen with a predilection for Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea or Joe Zawinul. He also likes music from Central Europe, Africa and French songs; he always takes one on his records (wax doll, sound doll on « Vago », say when will you come back from Barbara, the song of the old lovers of Brel or the Irish ballad immortalized by Bourvil on the following ones).
Marcel is always ready for new musical adventures, as for the Spring straps which gives him carte blanche every year; In 2013, he set up a Quincy Jones big band with Pascal Beck, the trombonist and arranger of Strasbourg, choosing the best French musicians to take back standards and original compositions; if Marcel records regularly (see all his albums in the discography page), he likes to play in public because it is there that he perceives intimately what his music brings or not to others. This does not prevent him from transmitting, since 2016, he teaches Jazz at the conservatory of music in Strasbourg.
Marcel Loeffler, an exceptional stylist. First of all, a clear, airy phrasing that combines light swing, elegance and lyricism, a constant focus on punctuations and contrechnts and a keen sense of improvisation; he can linger around the melody with an unfailing inspiration or punctuate his speech with some virtuoso accelerations never gratuitous; for Marcel has long since passed the stage of virtuosity; what interests him is to play in a thoughtful, more elaborate way, to build something coherent, to play on the nuances, to keep the note; for him, music is above all emotional.

Francis Couvreux