Concert choice

The Burt Bacharach Forum is a board to discuss the music and career of composer Burt Bacharach and performers associated with his songs.

Moderator: mark

pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

Martin Johnson wrote:In the thread concerning Swing Out Sister's new album I described the track 'Everybody's Here' as sounding like it might have been influenced by Michel Legrand and thought then that a thread dedicated to the great French composer was long overdue. We know what a class act the aforementioned Swing Out Sister's Corinne Drewery and Andy Connell are and here they are on British TV in 1989 performing a voice and piano version of perhaps Michel Legrand's most famous song, 'The Windmills of Your Mind':

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CSfJ8s6V4Lg
I remember watching that at the time on a program called, as far as I can recall, Pebble Mill At One and being surprised and not a little impressed that an act at that time I only really knew for 'Breakout' and 'You On My Mind' could perform a Michel Legrand classic so convincingly.

'The Summer Knows' is a popular song of Legrand's but I actually prefer it in its original instrumental form as 'The Theme From Summer of 42'. Here is the great man's own orchestral version.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oYu6HtUxRJs
Paul
Blair N. Cummings
Posts: 1123
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:14 pm

Re: Concert choice

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

If for no better reason than to be my usual contrarian self, I have to say that I have always found LeGrand`s music to be excruciatingly boring.
Sara D
Posts: 391
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:32 am

Re: Concert choice

Post by Sara D »

I was talking to my husband about the jazz pianist Bill Evans and what we had of his in our collection when he reminded me about the album he made with Tony Bennett which included Michel Legrand's and Alan and Marilyn Bergman's 'You Must Believe in Spring', a staple of late night jazz radio shows.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2bDFDYhXqPM
pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

Here's Bill Evans again this time accompanying Monica Zetterlund in the archetypal Legrand ballad, 'Once Upon A Summertime'. The English lyrics for this song were written by Johnny Mercer, no less.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MjdD_oF0lA8
Paul
Martin Johnson
Posts: 462
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:41 am

Re: Concert choice

Post by Martin Johnson »

I first knew the song as sung in French from the film 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' but the first time I remember hearing it in English as 'I Will Wait For You' it was sung by Matt Monro:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awlZs_7Xnz4
Sara D
Posts: 391
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:32 am

Re: Concert choice

Post by Sara D »

I believe it's not so much the beautiful melodies rather it's the sophisticated chord structures that draw jazz musicians towards Michel Legrand's compositions and pianist Bill Evans in particular seems to have had a natural affinity with his music.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNgM1gIxE0
steveo_1965
Posts: 1023
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:17 pm
Location: Los Angeles

Re: Concert choice

Post by steveo_1965 »

Hey you all,
you be talkin about Michel Legrand..my favorite by him is a little known tune from a failed movie the title song to Pieces of Dreams , Peggy Lee made the record
Steveo
pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

Steveo, 'Pieces Of Dreams' is my personal favourite of Legrand's after 'Watch What Happens'. As we've already heard it sung in this thread here's Michel Legrand's beautifully orchestrated instrumental version. Listen out for all the flugelhorns near the beginning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cad8WlkjHb4
Paul
pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

I see that Michel Legrand is returning to Ronnie Scott's in London on September 20th. This time he'll be playing with the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Orchestra and with "special guests" yet to be confirmed. Here's hoping he performs 'One At A Time'.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8SCaOuvGKJA
Paul
nowmedical
Posts: 333
Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:51 pm
Location: london

Re: Concert choice

Post by nowmedical »

Thanks pjmls, seats in row 8 booked! But note - it's at the Festival Hall, not Ronnie's.
pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

Yes, so it is and that makes the show a much better proposition. My days of late nights at jazz clubs are now well and truly over and getting home exhausted just before the milkman's delivery a distant memory.
Paul
Blair N. Cummings
Posts: 1123
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:14 pm

Re: Concert choice

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

As we used to say in a bygone era, "I can relate..."
In my 20s, I could (and did) see Dizzy Gillespie, Archie Shepp, Benny Bailey, Johnny Griffin, Sun Ra and band (and on and on) in Venues like the Village Vanguard where, for a cover of $5.00 or so (including a free drink), you could stay for both early and late sets with no extra charge. Drinks were around $1.00. Climbing up to 7th Ave in the wee hours and hoping a cab would come by in the frigid winter night was a jolt but youth has stamina.

Out of curiosity, I just checked the Vanguard`s schedule for next week. For $35.00 cover and $5.00 beer (no freebie), you can stay for a single set by the one and only...Donny McCaslin. (WHO?)

I`m wrapping up my jazz life in October at the Blue Note (which I persist in referring to as a "new" club despite its having opened in 1980). I`m staying for both of Hiromi`s Thursday night sets despite the extortionate cost because there`s no one else I want to see any more and it seems like a fitting close to this important part of my life.

We`re all old now, I guess.
pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

If I ever visit New York then I'd be obliged to go to all the famed jazz clubs otherwise what would be the point of my being there? I think the buzz of being in the city would help to sustain me through the late nights and early mornings.

These days at Ronnie Scott's it's normally all done and dusted at a relatively civilised hour but when I first started visiting the club in the 80s it would remain open until about 3am. By the time the main act came back for their 2nd set, usually after 1am, I'd have problems just staying awake, especially after a big meal and a surfeit of wine. I remember leaving the club at 2.30am one night in and around '97 after seeing Diana Krall's debut at the venue and falling into the nearest taxi to take me home to the suburbs, about a 45 minute drive away. It's at moments like this you want a quiet, monosyllabic driver and not the very vocal right-wing bigot I was confronted with. After about 15 minutes of listening to him putting the world to rights and with me grunting in the appropriate places, I asked him if he had any music in the car. Much to my relief and surprise he was happy to comply and slipped his one and only disc into the player, a Cat Stevens 'Greatest Hits' compilation of all things. I have to say that Cat Stevens, or Yusuf Islam as he's now known, has never sounded so good.
Paul
Blair N. Cummings
Posts: 1123
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:14 pm

Re: Concert choice

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

To hit all of the "famed" jazz clubs in the City can now be accomplished in a single night at the Vanguard. The others, whose names you`ve seen on the back of old vinyl album covers, long ago receded into history.
The Blue Note is one of those excruciatingly "hip" venues I would love to see visited by the NYFD for an examination of its slave-ship seating arrangement.

For an example of what you missed, here`s the great Texas tenor Johnny Griffin at the Vanguard in `80, just weeks after I had seen this same group at Fat Tuesday`s on Third Ave just blocks from where I lived (and so could walk to and from the gig):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjIxGf10Zhk
pljms
Posts: 865
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Concert choice

Post by pljms »

I should imagine the New York clubs in common with Ronnie Scott's get their fair share of noisy tourists, mostly non-jazz fans for whom visiting a famous nightclub is just something else to be ticked off their 'places to go' list and because they're flashing the cash and spending hundreds of dollars/pounds management is reluctant to ask to keep quiet.

Going back to Cat Stevens, when Christopher Cross's recording of 'Arthur's Theme' first appeared it seems a lot of people were reminded of 'Killing me Softly With His Song', but in my case I heard more echoes of his 'Wild World', a song that preceded 'Killing Me' by a couple of years.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y8pvXLVu8Yk
Paul
Post Reply