I love everything French ever since I was a tot and my dad took me to see a Bardot movie in Larkspur California. Over decades my love of Parisian aesthetic came to fruition with the music of Serge Gainsbourg, Boris Vian, Les Rita Mitsuko, and many others. I also love French Jazz, which sometime sounds like American Jazz, but with a French twist to the sound. In 2004, they released a "Jazz in Paris" series that is excellent. Eventually, they then made CD boxsets with an additional book in the package. One can't go wrong with the quality of the book as well as the music of course. Volume 3 is "Saint-Germain-Des-Prés (1946-1956), and it's a compilation that goes beyond excellence.
Saint-Germain was the focal point of those years for writing and music-making. Think of it as Liverpool in the early 1960s or Height Asbury in the Psychedelic Era, or NYC from the 1930s to 1970s. It seems that brilliance was from the air and landed on the grand boulevard of Saint-Germain.
Boris Vian and some others introduce American Jazz into Paris, by releasing recordings as well as arranging tours for various Jazz artists such as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and others. This collection mostly focuses on French jazz musicians like Django Reinhardt, René Urtreger Trio, and including my hero Boris Vian.
There are also Americans such as Sidney Bechet And His Feetwarmers, Don Byas, and so forth. Still, the magnificence of the playing and the communication between the two cultures are breathtaking. Beautiful moments of time and this boxset takes you to ground zero of French greatness.
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