The Last of the International Playboys, if that were a social club, then surely French singer/guitarist Sacha Distel would have been a member. I discovered him through my obsession with the world that surrounded Boris Vian, the author I published with my press TamTam Books. Distel was a guy who was in the right place, Paris, and to be specific, at the Saint-Germain des Prés nightclubs and had an obsession with be-bop jazz. Studied under and pal with the great Henri Salvador, Distel played guitar with artists like The Modern Jazz Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie, as well as with top French jazz musicians. In the late 1950s, he became internationally famous for being Brigitte Bardot's lover, which in turn introduced himself into a favourite vocalist.
When I think of Sacha Distel, it is in two separate compartments. One as a massive French pop singer star, and the other as a great jazz guitarist. Rarely did the two forms of music met on his recordings. For the casual fan, he is probably thought of as an entertainer who sings. It's much harder to locate his work on vinyl/CD of his Jazz-leaning guitar work. I went to Amoeba yesterday and found this French issued 7" EP, of Sacha singing "La La Song," which is not fantastic, but nevertheless a good French pop song. The other three songs on the EP are based on Amerian songs with French lyrics written by Maurice Tézé, who worked a lot as a lyricist with Distel. The best song on this EP is J'aimerais Être Là (I Wanna Be Around) which is based on a Johnny Mercer tune. The real stars of these recordings are the arrangers. Three songs are arranged by the Boris Vian/Serge Gainsbourg associate Alain Gorgaguer (as well as doing the futuristic soundtrack to the animated "La Planète Sauvage) and Michel Colombier, another artist who worked with Gainsbourg. For those in the know, when you see those names attached to a recording, it is usually a good sign that they're good.
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