Leonard Cohen: The Partisan
I’d hate to alarm readers with the fear that since bunking off to France for a couple of weeks in August I’ve come back as a folkie, but Leonard Cohen’s version of the 1940s song about the French Resistance, La Complainte du Partisan, recently got into my head, and has stayed there. Rounding a bend on a mountain road near Moureze in the south last week abruptly revealed more than 100 white crosses by the roadside bearing the names of the Bir-Hakeim cell of the local resistance, summarily shot by occupying forces at that spot in May 1944. French, Spanish, British and other nationalities were inscribed on the memorial, and in the light of current European strife about the price of humane values, it had an unnerving resonance in the silence of that craggy place.
Django Reinhardt/Stéphane Grappelli: The Marseillaise
Perhaps unsurprisingly, that led to The Marseillaise, and to this breezy account of it recorded in London in 1946 by the guitarist Django Reinhardt and the violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Reinhardt – a Roma who remained in France through the war years but was often protected from Nazi persecution by closet jazz fans among the invaders – kept on playing some of the most life-affirming and generous music of the decade.
Charlie Haden/Carla Bley: America The Beautiful
The theme of life-affirming generosity naturally brings us to Donald Trump. It seems a fair bet that Django and Stéphane’s attitudes to flags, ideologies, national identities and much else might be a little different to his – but I’d hate to stereotype him, so here’s a reverent and heartfelt piece of America The Beautiful by those well-known if somewhat pink-hued patriots Charlie Haden, Carla Bley and the Liberation Music Orchestra that he’s just bound to love.
Christian Muthspiel: Tears of Laughter
The Austrian jazz and classical trombonist and former Vienna Art Orchestra member Christian Muthspiel comes to the Vortex Jazz Club, London, on 30 September and 1 October, with trumpeter Matthieu Michel, vibraphonist Franck Tortiller, and American bass guitarist Steve Swallow. Muthspiel is an audacious and original crossover artist for whom the interplay of improvisation and often quite formally composed music has been a mission for over 20 years. This trip will showcase Muthspiel’s polyphonic jazz investigations of the music of English Renaissance composer John Dowland.
Diana Krall: Sessions at West 54th
After a long layoff recovering from pneumonia, Diana Krall is back in the UK next week with the music from her Wallflower album – devoted to covers of pop songs that have been important in her life, including the Dylan track of the title. Krall gets a hard time from some jazzers, but late jazz legends such as bassist Ray Brown and pianist Jimmy Rowles weren’t imagining things when they became her mentors – Krall’s understated confection of the methods of Nat King Cole, Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae and many others testify to sharp-eared musicality rather than saleable nostalgia, and if she plays more rock and boogie than she did in her canny pre-superstar days in the 90s, those qualities can still surface. Krall plays Birmingham Symphony Hall on 28 September and the Royal Albert Hall on 30 September and 1 October.
