Brigitte Fontaine - "13 Chansons Décadentes et Fantasmagoriques" CD Album

Brigitte Fontaine - 13 Chansons Décadentes et Fantasmagoriques

CD, Album, France, 2002 (originally recorded 1966)

Disques Jacques Canetti

What planet is this woman from, and why am I not born on this same planet?   Brigitte Fontaine, is a force that goes forward and rarely looks back.  But for me who just discovered her maybe five years ago, I have a lot to catch up on.  So I believe this may be her first album.  Chansons Décadentes et Fantasmagoriques.  Fontaine, who I know very little of, with respect to her background, but I have a strong suspicion that she is the bohemian’s bo-ho.  A chanson singer by trade, but one who took that form into another world.  Her singing style is very theatrical with a tinge of contemporary feeling or soul.   What is interesting to me (among a lot of stuff regarding her) is that Jimmy Walter arranged this album, and also worked with Boris Vian.   And she also did an album of recordings of Vian’s music as well.  So that thread between Saint Germain des Prés culture is very much part of Fontaine’s world, yet different because it is being made for the May ’68 generation.  This is an artist who didn’t stand still. I want to belong to her cult.

Boris Vian, Marie-José Casanova - "Marie-José Casanova chante Boris Vian" Vinyl LP

Boris Vian, Marie-José Casanova - Marie-José Casanova Chante Boris Vian

Vinyl LP, Album, Canada, 1965

Disques Jacques Canetti

A very interesting album on a couple of accounts.  First of all between the songs of Marie-José Casanova (is she a relative?) there is poetry by Vian recited by Pierre Brasseur, an actor who played the  great insane doctor in Les Yeux sans visage (“Eyes Without A Face”)  Also Jimmy Walter who co-wrote a lot of songs with Vian, arranged this album.   So what is one getting is very much an on-hands-because-I knew him approach to this specific record.  Also there is Vian himself either reciting his poetry or making commentary about his work.  I don’t speak French so I am not sure about this.

Nevertheless this is a fantastic album.  In a way it reminds me of Lotte Lenya’s great recordings of her husband Kurt Weil’s music.   Which is not a bad comparison because Casanova covers a Brecht/Weil song here that was translated or re-worked by Vian.  The beauty of this album is that it is very much a late-in-the-evening type of feel.  The arrangements are full but simple, and never gets in the way of Casanova’s smokey bluesy voice.

Magali Noel - "Magali Noel chante Boris Vian" CD Album Reissue

Magali Noel - Magali Noel Chante Boris Vian

CD, Album, Reissue, 2002 (originally recorded 1964), France

Jacques Canetti

Both films “La Dolce Vita” and “Rififi” benefited from the presence of Magall Noel, and like a shadow  following another presence, Boris Vian had a wonderful singer to represent the pop side of his music.  Jazz like, but more of a pop leaning, Noel tears into the Vian songbook for the second time.  Her first album was “Rock n’ Roll” which was supervised by Vian as well as being all songs co-written by the master.   This album was recorded in 1964, five years after Vian’s death.  It is both a tribute to the man, but also the distance of years between his passing and the recording allows Noel to convey a fresh light to the magnificent Vian wit.  

Finger-snapping rhythm, most of these songs are up-tempo and it does have a sense of energy due to Noel’s voice and presence in these recordings.