Debussy Jazz

Debussy’s exotic harmonies have had a long and lasting influence on jazz’s piano greats, including Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, and Fred Hersch. Hervé Sellin, professor of jazz at Debussy’s alma mater, the Paris Conservatoire, has also fallen under the Impressionist composer’s spell, using the most famous works as a springboard for inspired improvisations, including the infectious swing of “La fille aux cheveux de lin” and the Sarabande from Pour le Piano, performed in the brash but brilliant style of the late, great Michel Petrucciani.

A century after his death on 25 March 1918, many harmonia mundi artists are eager to pay tribute to Claude Debussy, the magician of melody and timbre, the great ‘colourist’ and father of modern music.

Three European jazz legends ! Don't miss their new project together around classic composer Claude Debussy for the release of their new album : "Monsieur Claude - [A Travel with Claude Debussy]"

The exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is a master of this repertoire. This is his second concerto recording for the label, after his survey of the complete piano concertos by Bartók (CHAN10610) which was released in September to high acclaim and voted ‘Orchestral Choice of the Month’ by the magazine BBC Music. Bavouzet’s complete recording of the piano music by Debussy also scooped awards from BBC Music and Gramophone, which wrote: ‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles.’ On this new release, Bavouzet is accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier, a conductor steeped in the French tradition and utterly at home in this repertoire. The result is a totally idiomatic performance of these French masterpieces for piano and orchestra.

When Jacques Loussier gave the music of Johann Sebastian Bach the jazz treatment (as others, notably the Modern Jazz Quartet, had before him), it worked really well. The tumbling flow of Bach's contrapuntal lines, the square rhythms that just beg to be played with a swing feel - everything about Bach that makes his music the farthest thing from jazz seems to make jazz adaptations inevitable. The French composer Claude Debussy is a less obvious choice, and on this album you see why. Debussy was a much more impressionistic composer, and his music doesn't have either the rhythmic vitality or the sense of driving tonal logic that fuels the music of Bach. That makes it harder to fit his compositions into a jazz context. That Loussier succeeds as much as he does is a compliment to his sensitivity as a pianist and to his trio's ability to work with him intuitively…