Pour rendre hommage à la grande actrice dont le nom est indissociable de la Chanson, ce coffret réunit pour la 1ère fois les 29 chansons que Serge Rezvani alias Bassiak a écrites pour Jeanne Moreau dans la foulée du Tourbillon de la vie. Jacques Canetti les a enregistrées en 1963, puis en 1966, avec comme orchestrateurs deux grands noms du jazz : Ward Swingle et Elek Bacsik.
Cellist Camille Thomas’ program of beautiful cello arrangements invites us to find hope amid uncertainty, to see light in the darkness. From Purcell’s grief-stricken “When I Am Laid in Earth” to Bruch’s yearning “Kol Nidrei” and Dvořák’s nostalgic “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” Thomas finds beauty deep within pain. But in Donizetti, she celebrates the power of love, in Wagner gentleness, and in Mozart steadfastness. Fazil Say’s 2017 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, “Never Give Up”, a musical response to the terrorist attacks in Paris and Istanbul, is searing and often upsetting, cello flowing like tears, orchestra twisted, demented. Birds bring peace, at last, to a modern masterpiece that confronts anguish and distress with strength and optimism.
The next step in the evolution of the bass guitar! The idea of a concerto for bass guitar is something that I have been dreaming of for decades. Since its invention, the bass guitar has firmly established itself as an essential and integral part of practically every genre of music. The bass guitar, as we now know it, was invented and produced by Leo Fender starting in 1951. The more portable bass guitar, in comparison to the large and unwieldy double bass, was capable of playing at higher volumes via amplification and satisfied the new sonic demands created by the widespread use of electrification in popular music. By increasing the overall scale of the electric guitar and only using the lowest four strings (E, A, D, G), Fender gave birth to a new instrument. Traditional double bassists could quickly adapt, with the added benefit of more accurate intonation due to the frets. Hence the original name: The Precision Bass. At the same time, guitarists could also become bass players when called upon. As a result, many of the early bass guitarists began their musical life as guitar players, with the most well-known example being Paul McCartney of The Beatles.