The Jazz Life— Michel Legrand
Jazz Pianist & Film Composer
With the death of French Oscar winning film composer and jazz pianist last year, Michel Legrand, another distinctive musical voice of the last fifty years has passed, leaving us saddened but richer for his legacy, not least for the music for such films as Jacques Demy’s 1964, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Norman Jewison’s 1968, The Thomas Crown Affair, with the featured song, ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’, becoming an international hit.
The Paris born Michel’s first musical love was undoubtedly jazz, a musical genre that would influence all of his film and TV compositions, at the same time grounding him in one of the most expressive musical forms ever to come our way.
This is exemplified superbly in an album Legrand recording in Hollywood back in 1993 called ‘Michel Plays Legrand’, which is a very relaxed tentette affair featuring some of the best jazz-cum-session musicians of the day, including the superb post Miles Davis trumpeter and flugelhorn player, Arturo Sandoval, who gives a wonderfully warm, yet driving head of steam to the band that contrasts beautifully to the powerful and gritty tenor sax playing of Pete Christlieb. The line-up also includes the late alto sax legend, Bud Shank, who cut his jazz teeth with the Stan Kenton Orchestra of the 1950s; on this recording he is a joy to hear. Bill Watrous is…
