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The Saturday playlist
The 10 tracks we have selected for today’s morning listen are these
A very international list
As you can see it’s a very international list led off by a Swede, Englishman and Finn. Jazz is a global language. It shouldn’t and to us doesn’t matter where you are from.
Back to today’s list
There’s an Italian leader and a Panamanian pianist icon.
The drop dead gorgeous lead-off track is an instrumental version of a 1970s piece of music ‘La Chanson d’Hélène’ written by the great film composer Philippe Sarde who worked with director Claude Sautet extensively on dozens of films including César and Rosalie. The lyrics of the song revolve around a September night at the remains of the day. The protagonist says to her lover, the character of Pierre Bérard in the film played by Michel Piccoli, that love is over with the response that they had to break up and that it’s better this way. He won’t write. A closing the book on their time together song. Le soleil n’y entrera plus – ”the sun will no longer enter it.”
The character of Hélène Haltig is played by the renowned German-French actress Romy Schneider, known for her work with Orson Welles and Visconti. (Schneider also played Rosalie to Yves Montand’s César in the later Sautet film mentioned above scored by Sarde.)
The tragic plot involved missed romantic opportunity and crucially an unsent letter.
Words in this original version above are by Jean-Loup Dabadie. It was first heard in the Sautet directed Les Choses de la Vie (‘The Things of Life’). Lars Danielsson in his Palmer Edition II: Trio version leads off with arco lines accompanied in an intricate late Renaissance type guitar manner by John Parricelli before the entrancing trumpet lines of Verneri Pohjola make their presence felt. And then there’s a certain paraphrasing of the theme in the arrangement and a move towards the bridge.
Also in the 10 there is a vibes Ethiojazz legend, English and Irish singers, a left-handed Dutch bassist, a breakthrough crossover globetrotting Afrojazz English band, the trio of a spectacularly hush laden Norwegian pianist and a sensational Beninese-American duo.
Note in our choice today the new deftly arranged version of Danilo Peréz 2008 classic ‘Across the Crystal Sea’ that fans will recall from the famed Claus Ogerman arranged and conducted collaboration with the Panamanian issued by EmArcy.
Narative arc and flow
We think the 10 hang together in a number of ways, mainly because all these acts in their different ways know how to set a narrative arc in these often complex pieces, often originals, and are virtuosi of flow and subtle pulsar shifts.
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