Michel de Villers made the beautiful evenings of La Rose Rouge before attending the Trois Mailletz with his accomplices Guy Lafitte and André Persiani. Attached to the swing, the saxophonist worked to demonstrate that good music and entertainment were perfectly reconcilable. A point of view shared by Boris Vian, artistic director of Philips discs. His clientele demanding dance records, Boris supervised the recordings. Entrusted to Villers, arranged by Persiani, these big band faces from 1958 and 1959 - we ignore the staff - instrumental adaptations of fashionable themes, still retain all their charm. In 1961, Jean-Christophe Averty produced a Claude Bolling Special Show for television. The show featured the pianist's nonette, a medium formation that sounded like great. In the absence of images, the music testifies to it.
For their 20th anniversary Club des Belugas are releasing a 3-CD album "Best of 2002 - 2022", with 51 tracks and a total playing time of 3 hours and 50 minutes. A compilation of the best-selling tracks on the one hand, and what the band believes to be the best tracks on the other (which is often, but not always, identical). Club des Belugas is one of the leading Nujazz bands in Europe, perhaps in the world. They combine contemporary European Electro, Lounge & Nujazz Styles with Brazilian Beats, Swing and American Black Soul of the fifties, sixties and seventies using their unique creativity and intensity. Since 2002 they released 12 studio albums, a 2CD live album, a live DVD, 22 singles, 1 EP and a 3 CD album BEST OF 2002 - 2022.
During August 2015 the WDR Big Band performed an impressive concert of large ensemble jazz crossed with African timbres and rhythms, at the Cologne Philharmonic. The guests also included Rhani Krija on percussion, Henry Dorina, electric bass, Woz Kaly, vocals and Jean-Philippe Rykiel, keyboard. The pieces were arranged and conducted by Michael Mossmann. The music is presented by Mokhtar Samba: it is about vibrant rhythms and hypnotising melodies. As Samba feels very close to the music of his ancestors, his pieces are naturally heavily influenced by the elementary power of African rhythms.
Marais's Alcione is the last great 'tragedy' in music from the reign of Louis XIV. It is a total spectacle at the crossroads of the 17th and 18th centuries, from which it takes the mythological source, it's praise of the sovereign's glory and the literary requirement to combine choreography and stage movements. Jordi Savall rediscovered this work and brought it back to life for the first stage production in Paris since 1771.
The brief biographical note duplicated in each of the three booklets (these CDs were previously available separately and were recorded over several years) tell a rather sad tale of yet another famous and successful composer destined to die young, in debt, and unmourned by a hard-hearted public. That he was a close friend of none other than Mozart for twenty years of his short life draws the parallel still closer. It is too easy to see the post J.S.Bach period as one consisting of a gap followed by Haydn and Mozart. In fact the sons of Bach included several very fine musicians indeed; Johann Christian is one, with the other most significant being Carl Philipp Emanuel. These two have only to be heard to alert the listener to their importance. Sons of Bach they may have been, but clones they were not.