Claude Janvier Demasque

Mike Patton and renowned French composer Jean-Claude Vannier, who is perhaps best known for his work with Serge Gainsbourg, have come together on the 12-song album, Corpse Flower.

Mike Patton and renowned French composer Jean-Claude Vannier, who is perhaps best known for his work with Serge Gainsbourg, have come together on the 12-song album, Corpse Flower.

Claude Williamson was one of the better bebop-oriented pianists to be active during the 1950s. This trio set with bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Mel Lewis has been reissued on CD. With the exception of four-minute renditions of "Stella by Starlight" and Horace Silver's "Hippy," all of the numbers clock in around the three-minute mark. The repertoire (which includes such tunes as "Somebody Loves Me," "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top," "Just One of Those Things" and "The Song Is You") is typical for the time period and Williamson brings to the music his own approach to playing bop. The set is quite enjoyable and, even if the program (which is around 39 minute) is a bit brief, it should appeal to straightahead jazz fans.

The reissue of keyboardist Claude Bolling's recordings of the 1960s may prompt a positive reevaluation of his contributions. Bolling has been known, at least outside France, mostly for the flute-and-piano works he composed for Jean-Pierre Rampal; his recordings with Rampal hit a certain popular groove and stuck with the formula. They were undeniably appealing in a simple way, but they became fatally overexposed. Bolling's earlier recordings reveal more imagination in his treatment of the relationship between jazz and classical music. Take for example this 1965 album, recorded in Paris. It's one of the few successful jazz treatments of Mozart, who is notoriously resistant to jazz treatment. The difficulty comes as a result of Mozart's reliance on harmonic rhythm, or the speed of the rate of change of the harmonies in the music. This feature seems impossible to capture in jazz, which heavily relies on regular chord changes, but Bolling's solutions here, making use of a classic jazz sextet, are brilliantly imaginative.

IIn his setting of Orlando, Handel offers us a score of remarkable dramatic power, diversity and originality. Orlando s mad scene and slumber aria are among the composer s most striking creations. Everything in the opera arouses admiration the extremely varied scoring, the exuberant vocal writing, the rhythmic invention and the supple melodies. On this new recording from K617, Jean-Claude Malgoire and La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy are joined by a cast of talented soloists in a fantastic production rivaling the best in the catalog.