I deliberately quoted Don Black’s introduction to Monsieur Legrand from the concert’s booklet. I couldn’t think of a better title, given the electrifying performance from Legrand Jazz and the Master himself that I watched on February 3rd at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, the renowned concert venue. The triple Oscar and 5 times Grammy winning French composer, Michel Legrand, now in his 70s, takes the stage with a graceful authority and effortlessly conducts the orchestra to bring to the audience the liberating, inspiring music.
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“Ever since I was a boy“, quotes Stephane Lerouge in his article Michel Legrand, or Music in the Plural, “my ambition has been to live completely surrounded by music. My dream is not to miss out anything. I love playing, conducting, singing and writing, and in all styles. I do all these activities at once, seriously, sincerely, and with deep commitment“. Although his discovery of music had started long before he’d entered the Paris Conservatory, it wasn’t until Lucette Descaves’ music class that Legrand had felt “at home” with his vocation. This vocation quite literally took him far and wide, and by the early 1950s, still in his 20s, Legrand achieved his first international success in the United States.
From mid-1950s Legrand has been composing for the film. The film that brought him his first major awards (e.g. the Palme d’Or) and became the world-wide hit was, of course, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), with the very young Catherine Deneuve. I have seen it on Russian TV many years ago, but it is perhaps best-known for Je Ne Pourrai Jamais Vivre Sans Toi (I Will Wait For You) love song. As Lerouge tells us, the film was made against the pessimistic predictions but, as it happens sometimes on such occasions, was massively successful. Following this, Legrand started dividing his time between Europe and America, collaborating with directors like Orson Welles, Clint Eastwood, Andrzej Wajda, Claude Lelouch, and writing scores for Yentl (with Barbra Streisand), The Thomas Crown Affair (with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway), Never Say Never Again (a James Bond film), Summer of 42 (the war-time drama), The Swimming Pool (with Alain Delon), Wuthering Heights (with Timothy Dalton), Prêt-à-Porter (by Robert Altman, with the international cast including Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee, and Rupert Everett), etc. His music is always melodic (“melody is a mistress to whom I’ll always be faithful“), and the many awards he’d received, including 3 Oscars, are but “a piece of flattery“: “deep down, it doesn’t make you any better or worse as a composer, your strengths or weaknesses remain unchanged“.
A fantastic biographic article is published at Radio France Internationale. A bilingual non-official fan site is also a great resource.
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If you have been following my Twitter updates (tagged #Legrand), you already know that the biggest thing that surprised and somewhat disappointed me was the age of the audience. By no means did I expect to see many children or teenagers, but the shift to 35+ (or even 40+) was just too obvious. Bridgewater Hall is no M.E.N. Arena, which is yet another reason why the age split became so apparent. And of course I don’t mean that those of Legrand’s generation shouldn’t have come to his concert.
It was a shame, though, that this versatile musician, singer, composer, and conductor hasn’t been seen performing live by many more younger people. This especially goes for the first half of the concert that was dedicated entirely to Legrand’s instrumental pieces. Surely, we have all seen amazing trumpet players and awesome drummers, but to have them all come together to play with the world-known musician is a very different thing. The enthusiasm and artistry of Mark Fletcher alone (drums) can make a huge difference to an aspiring young drummer.
As for me, had I been a little girl, I’d probably have decided to study harp, to play like Catherine Michel. Currently a Professor of Harp at the Zurich Musikhochschule, Michel joined Legrand Jazz to perform the score from Yentl. She is a perfect match to Legrand: you could see that she loves the harp just as much as Legrand evidently adores the piano. The passionate yet graceful performance transfixes the spectator, and I continued humming the melody well after the concert ended.
Just as the first half was inspiring and smooth, so the second wasn’t – or at least this is how it felt to me. The bluntest would be to say that Alison Moyet and Michel Legrand don’t go together well, but clearly they wouldn’t get that far in collaboration, had this been the case. Perhaps, it was the hall’s ambience. Maybe it was something else. Somehow the deep bluesy voice of Moyet didn’t convey the drama of the songs. Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?, Nobody Knows, I Will Wait For You, I Will Say Goodbye, Summer Knows, The Windmills Of Your Mind – it was a good singing, but more? Hardly. If you consider that the songs she performed were written for the films, it is impossible not to act when singing them. I don’t mean staging anything theatrical. The singer can do infinitely more with the voice that just hits the notes. This was particularly evident for me in I Will Wait For You, which is a tearful drama (especially if you’d seen the film). I couldn’t feel (or see) the same kind of passion that spilt over the stage when Legrand Jazz performed alone or with Catherine Michel.
There are still several nights left on Legrand’s UK tour. I absolutely hope that my not-entirely-positive review remains the only one such. And to round it up, here is a list of What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life? covers on YouTube, and a Barbra Streisand 1994 performance of the song.