Le Vénérable W.

Ludovico Einaudi is a minimalist Italian composer, often associated with film, who has enlivened his style with electronic effects drawn from the worlds of techno and ambient music. He sometimes goes by his last name alone. The combination has proven commercially potent in Europe, and given the attraction of Steve Reich and the other minimalists among aficionados of electronic music on the pop side, it's surprising more musicians haven't explored the combination. Live in Berlin mostly draws on Einaudi's album Divenire, which is scored for piano and orchestra.

The venerable Charles Aznavour graced his adoring public with a stellar album of material for the new millennium, titled Aznavour 2000. The album tends to sway toward upbeat, jazzy, swingin' numbers, such as the opener, "Le Jazz Est Revenu," "Elle a le Swing au Corps," "La Formule Un," and "Nos Avocats." His voice, always warm and compassionate, is like an old friend, giving this album a feeling of intimacy, although his public spans the globe and numbers in the millions. The shining moments, however, are the ballads, which drip with his eternally stylish and sophisticated melancholy, such as the lovely and heartbreaking "De la Scene a la Seine," a tribute to the late, tragic Italian-Egyptian star Dalida. The downcast "Qu'Avons-Nous Fait de Nos Vingt Ans" echoes of his ancestral Armenia and "Je Danse Avec l'Amour" is a classic-sounding French chanson. "Quand Tu M'Aimes" and the samba-styled "Je Ne Savais Pas" are from his musical Lautrec (based on the life of Tolouse-Lautrec) and offer more variety to this winning and marvelously orchestrated album. A sheer pleasure through and through for fans of the amazing and enduring Charles Aznavour.

Lucky Thompson was very active in the recording studios during his 1956 visit to France; this CD in Verve's attractive Jazz in Paris reissue series features the big toned tenor saxophonist with both a quartet and a tentet. Thompson's lush sound in sensitive interpretations of "The Man I Love" and the less familiar ballad "There's No You" brings Ben Webster to mind. Thompson's original "Tight Squeeze" is an up-tempo jump blues which showcases his harder blowing, more boppish side; while the venerable standard "Gone With the Wind" is a brisk swinger. Pianist Henri Renaud leads the potent rhythm section. The tentet session is less memorable. All of the songs were written by Renaud, and while they are comparable to much of the output of so-called "cool school" of the period, they tend to be a little too conservative. Still, Thompson's playing is at a high label throughout both dates, so bop fans should invest in this enjoyable CD.