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My One And Only Love - European Jazz Legends Vol. 15

Martial Solal

My One And Only Love - European Jazz Legends Vol. 15

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Intuition
UPC: 0608917132724
Catnr: INTCHR 71327
Release date: 06 April 2018
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Label
Intuition
UPC
0608917132724
Catalogue number
INTCHR 71327
Release date
06 April 2018

"Listen to him in this recent German solo performance: thirteen pieces in which he lays everything, shows the entire jazz pianistics and also distribute musical quips in between."

Jazzism, 15-6-2018
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
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About the album

"Martial Solal has, in abundance, those indispensables of the musicians’ craft: sensitivity, creativity, and a prodigious technique. Most of all, he sparkles with refreshment." These words of praise were written by his "soul brother" Duke Ellington for Solal’s US debut album, recorded mostly at Newport in 1963 with Bill Evans’ rhythm section Paul Motian on drums and Teddy Kotick on bass. More than half an exciting century later the legendary French pianist and composer, who excelled with works for soundtracks, orchestras, big bands and his own groups, as well as in the meantime duo settings with jazz masters from Lee Konitz to Dave Liebman, once again proved why the Duke loved him madly.

As soon as Martial Solal sat down at the piano in the Theater Gütersloh for soundcheck, all the months of preparation and practice for this solo-concert, and the strain of the travel here from his home in Chatou near Paris seemed to disappear. "At home I don’t even make music, I just practice scales and things", he said, after explaining why he looks forward to play on a great grand piano on stage. "I have two pianos at home: I practiced for years on an old upright piano with a light keyboard touch, and I was frequently suffering when meeting on stage instruments with a heavier touch. Then I bought in 1977 a grand piano Kawai, and asked the piano maker to adjust it with a heavy touch response, to be perfectly at ease on all kind of pianos I am invited to play. I always have the music in my head, but it only comes out on the right instrument."

Solal obviously enjoyed playing the Steinway on offer here, and almost forcibly had to restrain himself from letting out even more amazing music already at soundcheck. He was wondering which song even the kids attending the concert that evening would recognize, some tune so well known that he could weave it into his improvisations to get their attention. After several suggestions, this 90 year old European Jazz Legend was finally reminded of "Frère Jacques", a nursery rhyme Solal knows well, but had never played before – at least the way he did that night!
The two "Sir Jack" improvisations on the theme of this canon included in this live recording alone attest the pianist’s sensitivity, creativity, and prodigious technique. And yes, they, and all the other melodies you thought you knew so well, sparkle with refreshment, too.


Götz Bühler
Martial Solal besitzt die unentbehrlichen Eigenschaften des kreativen Handwerks in Hülle und Fülle: Einfühlungsvermögen, Fantasie und eine erstaunliche Technik. Vor allem funkelt er vor Begeisterung." Diese Worte des Lobes schrieb sein "Soul-Bruder" Duke Ellington zu Solals US-Debüt, das 1963 in Newport mit Bill Evans' Rhythmusgruppe Paul Motian am Schlagzeug und Teddy Kotick am Bass aufgenommen wurde. Mehr als ein halbes, spannendes Jahrhundert später bewies der legendäre französische Pianist und Komponist, der mit Werken für Soundtracks, Orchester, Big Bands und seine eigenen Gruppen sowie in Duo-Settings mit allen von Lee Konitz bis Dave Liebman von sich reden machte, inzwischen wieder einmal, warum der Duke ihn so sehr liebte.

Sobald Martial Solal sich im Theater Gütersloh zum Soundcheck ans Klavier setzte, schienen die monatelange Vorbereitungen und Übungen für dieses Solokonzert und die Strapazen der Reise von seinem Wohnort in Chatou bei Paris zu verschwinden. "Zu Hause mache ich nicht einmal Musik, ich übe nur Tonleitern und ähnliches", sagte er, nachdem er erklärt hatte, warum er sich darauf freut, auf einem großen Flügel auf der Bühne zu spielen. "Ich habe zwei Klaviere zu Hause: ich habe jahrelang an einem alten Klavier mit leichtem Tastenanschlag geübt und habe oft gelitten, wenn ich auf Bühneninstrumente mit schwereren Anschlag traf. Dann kaufte ich 1977 einen Kawai-Flügel und bat den Klavierbauer, ihn mit einer schweren Anschlagsdynamik einzustellen, damit ich mich auf allen Arten von Klavieren, zu denen ich eingeladen bin, wohlfühlen kann. Ich habe die Musik immer im Kopf, aber sie kommt nur auf dem richtigen Instrument heraus."

Solal hat es offensichtlich genossen, den hier angebotenen Steinway zu spielen und musste sich fast zwangsläufig davor hüten, nicht schon beim Soundcheck noch mehr großartige Musik freizugeben. Er fragte sich, welches Lied sogar die Kinder, die an diesem Abend das Konzert besuchten, wiedererkennen würden, eine Melodie, die so bekannt war, dass er sie in seine Improvisationen einflechten konnte, um ihre Aufmerksamkeit zu erregen. Nach mehreren Vorschlägen wurde diese 90 Jahre alte europäische Jazz-Legende schließlich an "Frère Jacques" erinnert, ein Kinderlied, das Solal gut kennt, aber noch nie zuvor gespielt hatte - zumindest so wie an jenem Abend!
Allein die beiden "Sir Jack"-Improvisationen zum Thema dieses Kanons, die in dieser Live-Aufnahme enthalten sind, zeugen von der Sensibilität, Kreativität und erstaunlichen Technik des Pianisten. Und ja, sie und all die anderen Melodien, von denen du dachtest, dass du sie so gut kennst, funkeln ebenfalls vor Lebenslust.

Artist(s)

Martial Solal (piano)

Born on 23 August 1927 in Algiers (Algeria), Martial Solal is certainly the French musician who meets with the wider international recognition since Django Reinhardt. From New Orleans, middle jazz, be bop to advanced modern jazz, the breadth of his career and the richness of his work amply justify this distinction, without forgetting the essential: his exceptional talents as an instrumentalist and composer, and the incredible fertility of his imagination in improvisation that made him one of the most admired pianists, far beyond the circle of jazz. Under the influence of his mother, an amateur opera singer, he started studying classical piano, clarinet and saxophone at the age of six, and discovered jazz as a teenager through Lucky Starway, a saxophonist-bandleader...
more
Born on 23 August 1927 in Algiers (Algeria), Martial Solal is certainly the French musician who meets with the wider international recognition since Django Reinhardt. From New Orleans, middle jazz, be bop to advanced modern jazz, the breadth of his career and the richness of his work amply justify this distinction, without forgetting the essential: his exceptional talents as an instrumentalist and composer, and the incredible fertility of his imagination in improvisation that made him one of the most admired pianists, far beyond the circle of jazz.
Under the influence of his mother, an amateur opera singer, he started studying classical piano, clarinet and saxophone at the age of six, and discovered jazz as a teenager through Lucky Starway, a saxophonist-bandleader who introduced him to the recordings of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, etc. and trained the young pianist to accompany him. Fascinated by the feeling of freedom through improvisation, Solal decided to become a jazz musician in 1945. This initiation encouraged him to practice intensively his piano technique, as he constantly did daily later.

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Composer(s)

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia. Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said 'His music sounds like America.' Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was...
more

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia.

Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said "His music sounds like America." Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a llifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.

Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing", "Sophisticated Lady", "Mood Indigo", “Solitude", "In a Mellotone",and "Satin Doll". The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, "Mood Indigo"which brought him world wide fame.

When asked what inspired him to write, Ellington replied, "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people".

Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, whatmakes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.

Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home.''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.

Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in theBronx, in New York City. At his funeral attendedby over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day...A genius has passed."


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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose actual name is Joannes Chrysotomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a composer, pianist, violinist and conductor from the classical period, born in Salzburg. Mozart was a child prodigy. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart is considered to be one of the most influential composers of all of music's history. Within the classical tradition, he was able to develop new musical concepts which left an everlasting impression on all the composers that came after him. Together with Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven he is part of the First Viennese School.  At 17, Mozart was engaged as...
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose actual name is Joannes Chrysotomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a composer, pianist, violinist and conductor from the classical period, born in Salzburg. Mozart was a child prodigy. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart is considered to be one of the most influential composers of all of music's history. Within the classical tradition, he was able to develop new musical concepts which left an everlasting impression on all the composers that came after him. Together with Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven he is part of the First Viennese School. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. From 1763 he traveled with his family through all of Europe for three years and from 1769 he traveled to Italy and France with his father Leopold after which he took residence in Paris. On July 3rd, 1778, his mother passed away and after a short stay in Munich with the Weber family, his father urged him to return to Salzburg, where he was once again hired by the Bishop. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death.


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Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie, barely twenty years earlier a visionary musician and genuine revolutionary, the co-founder of bebop with Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk, as well as the veritable matchmaker behind the sensual fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms and modern jazz, was no exception to this massive movement that stripped jazz of its former standing. He was famous far beyond the inner sanctum of jazz lovers: his clowning antics, exaggerated by his legendary outsized jowls, gave the image of a jester blowing endlessly into an improbably shaped angled trumpet with its copper bell splendidly facing skyward. But to an audience in the thrall of new sounds, new grooves, new attitudes, Gillespie suddenly appeared to be a mere caricature of his past glory, conveying...
more
Dizzy Gillespie, barely twenty years earlier a visionary musician and genuine revolutionary, the co-founder of bebop with Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk, as well as the veritable matchmaker behind the sensual fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms and modern jazz, was no exception to this massive movement that stripped jazz of its former standing. He was famous far beyond the inner sanctum of jazz lovers: his clowning antics, exaggerated by his legendary outsized jowls, gave the image of a jester blowing endlessly into an improbably shaped angled trumpet with its copper bell splendidly facing skyward. But to an audience in the thrall of new sounds, new grooves, new attitudes, Gillespie suddenly appeared to be a mere caricature of his past glory, conveying an image of jazz that was joyful, carefree, and certainly spectacular … but decidedly irrelevant
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Martial Solal (piano)

Born on 23 August 1927 in Algiers (Algeria), Martial Solal is certainly the French musician who meets with the wider international recognition since Django Reinhardt. From New Orleans, middle jazz, be bop to advanced modern jazz, the breadth of his career and the richness of his work amply justify this distinction, without forgetting the essential: his exceptional talents as an instrumentalist and composer, and the incredible fertility of his imagination in improvisation that made him one of the most admired pianists, far beyond the circle of jazz. Under the influence of his mother, an amateur opera singer, he started studying classical piano, clarinet and saxophone at the age of six, and discovered jazz as a teenager through Lucky Starway, a saxophonist-bandleader...
more
Born on 23 August 1927 in Algiers (Algeria), Martial Solal is certainly the French musician who meets with the wider international recognition since Django Reinhardt. From New Orleans, middle jazz, be bop to advanced modern jazz, the breadth of his career and the richness of his work amply justify this distinction, without forgetting the essential: his exceptional talents as an instrumentalist and composer, and the incredible fertility of his imagination in improvisation that made him one of the most admired pianists, far beyond the circle of jazz.
Under the influence of his mother, an amateur opera singer, he started studying classical piano, clarinet and saxophone at the age of six, and discovered jazz as a teenager through Lucky Starway, a saxophonist-bandleader who introduced him to the recordings of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, etc. and trained the young pianist to accompany him. Fascinated by the feeling of freedom through improvisation, Solal decided to become a jazz musician in 1945. This initiation encouraged him to practice intensively his piano technique, as he constantly did daily later.

less

Press

Listen to him in this recent German solo performance: thirteen pieces in which he lays everything, shows the entire jazz pianistics and also distribute musical quips in between.
Jazzism, 15-6-2018

A true sample of fine music that has been promoted by Solal's hallucinatory spirit into a true pleasure.
Rootstime, 30-4-2018

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