Paris Humilié, 1940 1941

All of these sides but one (a pop vocal by Charles Trenet) were made in December 1940, just half a year into the Nazi occupation of Paris. People are still marveling over the fact that Django Reinhardt, a Gypsy who played music closely aligned with Jews and Afro-Americans, was not arrested and put to death by the invasive regime, for these collective jams were and are the antithesis of fascist ideology. It just so happens that this little slice of the chronology contains some of Reinhardt's most interesting material, wonderfully evolved from the earlier Hot Club de France, yet filled with premonitions of how jazz would come to sound ten or even 20 years later. Hubert Rostaing was an inventive clarinetist, sounding something like Marshall Royal, and is featured on most of these sides…

Considering how well he improvised at the piano, Nat King Cole's rise to fame was gruelingly gradual. Volume Two in the Classics Nat King Cole chronology contains all of the recordings he made between July 22, 1940 and March 14, 1941. His trio, a sharp little unit containing guitarist Oscar Moore and string bassist Wesley Prince, spent much of the year 1940 holding down a steady gig in the Radio Room, a small club located at 1539 Vine Street in Hollywood. It was there that they polished their act to perfection, ignored by both the public at large and the major record labels. As King Cole's Swingsters, they did manage to cut a small number of records for the Davis & Schwegler transcription service, a sleazy little fly by night outfit that soon went bankrupt, leaving the recordings unreleased and the musicians unpaid…

Le chemin Walter Benjamin n’est pas qu’une métaphore. C’est une réalité : un itinéraire de randonnée pyrénéen qui, en Catalogne, mène de Banyuls-sur-mer à Portbou, de France en Espagne. Son point d’arrivée est le petit cimetière suspendu au-dessus de la Méditerranée où Walter Benjamin fut inhumé, après sa mort le 26 septembre 1940. Création de l’artiste israélien Dani Karavan, le mémorial qui lui rend hommage plonge dans la mer, à l’endroit précis d’un incessant tourbillon. …