Jean-Marc Padovani is a French tenor and soprano saxophonist, composer and arranger, born on February 2, 1956 in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, in the Gard, and based in Toulouse. His career began in the regional jazz scene around Nîmes and grew into a body of work that sets jazz improvisation beside flamenco, Occitan and Maghreb music, theatre and poetry, with records on Label Bleu, Label Hopi, Naïve and Le Chant du Monde. He has also worked for theatre, cinema and song. He turned 70 in February 2026.

He studied classical music first and then entered the jazz class of Guy Longnon at the Marseille conservatoire. From 1975 he played in regional groups: the orchestra of the Nîmes Jazz Club, the quartet of the pianist Christian Lavigne, and Michel Marre's Cossi Anatz, a twelve-piece band that mixed jazz with Occitan and African traditions. His first record as a leader was Demain Matin (Metro Records, 1983), recorded in Paris in March 1983 with the guitarist Claude Barthélemy, who also plays bass guitar on it and arranged it, the bassists Jean-Luc Ponthieux and Henri Texier (Texier on two tracks), the drummers Manuel Denizet and Denis Fournier, and Philippe Delettrez on alto and tenor saxophones. Barthélemy was a partner through the decade. Padovani plays on his Moderne (Owl, 1983) and Real Polit!-K (Big Noise, 1986), and Barthélemy is on Padovani's own Padovani Sax Blues (Big Noise, 1986). Comédy (Big Noise, 1987) is a record he shared with the tuba player Michel Godard, recorded in Paris in November and December 1986.

His first large public success was Tres Horas de Sol, a musical and literary flamenco-jazz show that he took around France and abroad for three years. The album of it (CELP, 1988) was recorded at the Sceaux What! jazz festival on June 9 to 11, 1988, with Louis Sclavis on clarinet and soprano saxophone, Barthélemy on bass, the singer Violeta Ferrer, the percussionist Youval Micenmacher and, on one piece, the flamenco guitarist Salvador Garcia. One for Pablo (CELP, 1989), recorded in May 1989, is a quintet record with the pianist Stéphane Kochoyan, the bassist Jean-Luc Ponthieux and the drummer François Verly, and guest appearances by Sclavis on bass clarinet, Bobby Rangell on alto saxophone and Marius Lorenzini on guitar.

The record that made his name in jazz circles is Nimeño (Label Bleu, 1991), recorded live on October 19 and 20, 1990. The trumpeter Enrico Rava wrote "Pour Jean-Yves" for it and plays on it alongside the trombonist Yves Robert, the bassist Hélène Labarrière and Micenmacher, with the guitarist Gérard Marais on one track. The newspaper Libération named it the best jazz record of 1991.

For many years he worked with the writer and actor Enzo Cormann, with whom he made a series of jazz poems and musical theatre pieces under their company La Grande Ritournelle. Sud (K617/AFAA, 1991) carries Cormann's text and voice, Padovani's music and arrangements, the ney of Kudsi Erguner, the mando-lute and voice of Hakim Hamadouche, and Micenmacher, the bassist Yves Rousseau and Gérard Marais on guitar synthesizer. Mingus Cuernavaca Mingus (Label Bleu, 1992), recorded live on December 5 to 7, 1991, is a jazz poem for Charles Mingus with Cormann's text and Padovani's music, played by an eight-piece band with Michel Marre on trumpet and euphonium, Richard Foy on alto and baritone saxophones, Didier Havet on tuba and bass trombone, Franck Tortiller on vibraphone, Kochoyan on piano, Rousseau on bass and Verly on drums and tabla, and it includes Mingus's "Goodbye Porkpie Hat". Later Cormann projects include the Kerouac pieces Chorus from Mexico City Blues (2001) and Tombeau de Jack Kerouac, Exit Talking Blues - Jazz Poem (2008) with Olivier Sens, and Films noirs (2011) with the pianist Philippe Léogé.

Nocturne (Label Bleu LBLC 6566, 1994), recorded in November 1993 and January 1994, has Padovani's compositions for a band with the accordionist Richard Galliano, the vibraphonist Franck Tortiller, the bassist Yves Rousseau, the drummer Jean-Claude Jouy, Kudsi Erguner on ney and Keyvan Chemirani on zarb, and closes with Jim Pepper's "Witchi Tia To". That year he also made Quatuor (AA Records), a saxophone quartet record with Yvan Avice, Richard Foy and Bruno Wilhelm. In November 1996 he recorded Takiya ! Tokaya ! (Label Hopi, 1997) as a quartet with the pianist Jean-Marie Machado, the bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark and the drummer Paul Motian. Padovani wrote five of its eight pieces and Machado two.

In 1997 he formed the quartet Chants du Monde to rework traditional music from around the world, and especially from the south of France. It gave its name to Chants du monde (Label Hopi, 1998) and to De nulle part (Label Hopi, 2002), a record of mostly Padovani originals recorded at La Buissonne with the accordionist Alain Bruel, the bassist Frédéric Monino, the violinist Jacob Maciuca, the vibraphonist Thomas Bonal, Marre on trumpet and the percussionists Keyvan and Bijan Chemirani. Jazz Angkor (Label Hopi, 1998) was recorded in Phnom Penh in April and May 1997 with the orchestra of the Royal University of Fine Arts and other Cambodian players, alongside Padovani, the drummer Ramón López, the accordionist Alain Bruel, the trombonist Geoffroy de Masure and the tubist François Thuillier. Le Minotaure Jazz Orchestra (Label Hopi, 2000), recorded in February 1998, is by the twelve-piece brass band he founded to rework themes from popular Spanish music, with Michel Marre among its trumpeters. His tribute to Eric Dolphy, Out (Deux Z, 2003), was recorded on February 10 to 12, 2003 by his septet, with Michel Marre, Franck Tortiller, the alto saxophonist and clarinettist Sébastien Texier, the guitarist Gérard Pansanel, Olivier Sens on bass and Jacques Mahieux on drums, in a programme created at Figeac.

The records of the 2000s and 2010s are mostly collaborations. L'Arrosoir et le mirliton (Modal Pleinjeu, 2005) draws on the bawdy songs of the Nivernais, with hurdy-gurdies, bagpipes and two singers, and was recorded live at the Nevers jazz festival in November 2003 and in the studio in March 2004. Cantilènes (Le Chant du Monde, 2005), recorded in February and March 2005, was made with the singers Mônica Passos, Houria Aïchi and Maja Pavlovska, the accordionist Alain Bruel, the hurdy-gurdy player Gilles Chabenat, the bassist Frédéric Monino and the drummer François Laizeau. In 2006 he and Barthélemy created the quartet Distances with Olivier Sens and Pierre Dayraud. (Sketches) (Pype Line, 2010), recorded in June 2010, is a septet record with the singer Claudia Solal, the alto saxophonist Bruno Wilhelm, David Chevallier on banjo and electric guitar, Paul Brousseau on keyboards, Monino and Laizeau, and its tracks include "Stolen Moments" and "Complete Ornette". In 2009 he created Liqaa in Toulouse, a mixture of Arab-Andalusian music and jazz. With the pianist Philippe Léogé he made Angel Eyes (2010) and Le Chant de la Terre (2012), the latter built on melodies by Déodat de Séverac and Federico Mompou. In 2012 he formed Tool Box, a jazz-fusion ensemble with Monino and Laizeau, which played a concert in the Radio France studios on October 26, 2013 that France Musique broadcast.

Motian in Motion (Naïve, 2015), recorded on December 8 to 10, 2014, is his tribute to Paul Motian. Padovani arranged Motian's compositions for a quintet with Didier Malherbe on duduk, the pianist Paul Brousseau, the bassist Claude Tchamitchian and the drummer Ramón López. In 2017 he recorded Canciones with the flamenco singer Paloma Pradal (Homerecords.be), nine Spanish songs for voice, saxophone, strings, double bass and percussion. A 52-minute documentary about him, Jazz en Padovani, by Jean-Marc Augereau, Jean-Marc Jouany and Pierre Condat, appeared in 2013. His son, Pablo Padovani, leads the band Moodoïd. The most recent release listed under his name on Discogs is Canciones.

Padovani plays tenor and soprano saxophones, composes and arranges, and what stands out in his records is the way a jazz rhythm section and improviser is placed in front of another tradition or a text. The traditions on his records include flamenco (Tres Horas de Sol, Canciones), Occitan and Mediterranean song (Chants du monde), Arab-Andalusian music (Liqaa), Cambodian music (Jazz Angkor, recorded in Phnom Penh), French folk song (L'Arrosoir et le mirliton) and classical melodies by Séverac and Mompou. The texts are Cormann's and Kerouac's. At the same time he returns to the jazz lineage in tributes to Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Paul Motian, and his collaborators in that line include Rava, Motian, Jenny-Clark, Sclavis, Texier and Barthélemy. Libération's choice of Nimeño as the best jazz record of 1991 is his best documented critical recognition. AllMusic classifies him as a jazz artist.