Search - Fred Hersch, Eddie Daniels, Kevin Eubanks :: The French Collection: Jazz Impressions of Debussy, Faure, Ravel, Poulenc, & Satie

The best Jazz - Record I have ever heard

Rainer Noch | Unkel near Bonn, Germany | 03/19/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The romantic French Music of Poulenc, Satie, Debussy, Fauré and Ravel is one of the most important roots of Jazz Music. The different and smooth-changing colours of sounds are very next to the Jazz improvisations and harmonizations. Fred Hersch is one of the best contemporary Jazz-pianists and he perfectly mangages it to perform inspiring "New American interpretations of older French Music", as this CD could be subtitled.



The titles on the CD are sometimes a bit melancholic, mostly introspective, but sometimes there are valses and ballades as if you could dance to it. There is an extraordinary spectrum of moods and intelligent interpretations. Some of the pieces of music are performed with the outstanding Toots Thilemans on the harmonica - an instrument which perfectly fits to the "French atmosphere". The contributions of Eddie Daniels (clarinet), Kevin Eubanks (guitar) and James Newton (flute) are gorgeous as well.



All titles can be rated with five stars. There is definitely no "poor title" among them. The classical character of the pieces of music is respected at any time.



I heared this CD first in June 1989 (even before it has been released in June 1990) on Willis Conover's "House of sounds" on the Voice of America (VoA Europe). I have been searching for this CD (which has not been avaible in any CD-shop in Europe) for more than 15 years, only owning a cassette tape of the VoA-broadcast. As a Jazz-fan I am glad to have been finding it at amazon.com in 2005. I am astonished that there is only a secondary market for this excellent CD.



My recommendation: "Strong Buy". "The French Collection" is even better than the Fred Hersch CD "Jazz Impressions of Russian Composers", released on the label EMI USA (Series "Red Square Blue").



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