{"product_id":"babx_nougaro_2019","title":"Nougaro","description":"He \"whitened\" Louis Armstrong, slammed his love for Léo Ferré, sang Prévert, Brassens, or Gainsbourg: fifteen years after his passing on March 4, 2004, Claude Nougaro, the mechanic of words, is celebrated in turn by several discographic tributes. Here he is – finally – recognized as a \"classic\" author, whose standards can be reappropriated by all kinds of performers. Among them, two very different and completely successful albums stand out, each in its own genre. Coming from the lyrical side, less expected, Natalie Dessay excels in softness. On the \"jazz\" side, it's hard to be more inventive than the Nougaro of Babx, André Minvielle, and saxophonist Thomas de Pourquery: brought together for the first time on stage by the festival Le Marathon des mots in 2014, and after a series of enchanting concerts, they finally resurrect the Toulouse singer on record, in a sensitive and invigorating patchwork of layered songs and whispered rhymes, lyrical spirals, and little a cappella delusions. \"From opera to aperitif, Nougaro was full of voice; it takes several to sing him,\" jokes André Minvielle. In this trio that the Occitan slam artist compares to the three musketeers, Babx-Aramis, the initiator of the project, brings his dandy sensuality, infusing a new lightness into songs like Rimes or Une petite fille. De Pourquery, in the role of the giant Porthos, adds his swing and lyrical breath – even vocally. As for the patriarch Minvielle-Athos, he has his Béarnais chatter, his consummate art of marrying rhyme and rhythm, and, of course, that famous baritone-Martin tessitura he shared with Nougaro. Of the three, he was the closest to the brooding songwriter: he first \"stole his rolled 'r's,\" later became his neighbor in Toulouse when he lived on rue des Polinaires, collaborated with him, and even lived in his apartment after his death. \"I was always compared to him. He inhabits me, he flows through me. I even started by singing Nougaro in bars to make a living. At the time, he represented an obstacle for me: I knew I had to get rid of him one way or another to find my own voice.\" \"We improvise, we juggle, we step on each other.\" Alain Minvielle The difference between the \"wordsmith\" Nougaro and the \"vocal alchemist\" Minvielle ultimately lies in their relationship to the verb. \"He was a true author, who wrote the text before finding its melodic setting. In contrast, I work first with sounds; the words come later.\" When he asked Nougaro to write a text for the letter \"n\" of his Abécédaire, the latter replied, \"It's no!\" a text he advised him to say rather than sing. \"I immediately disobeyed,\" chuckles Minvielle, who takes it up with verve on the album – as well as K you K yaw, another song by Nougaro. With the delicate Babx and the dreamlike de Pourquery, the Occitan singer spares no effort. \"Every time we meet, it's the same freedom. It's what Claude sought when he jazzed it up with people like Bernard Lubat: very playful musicians, who know how to read music and twist it according to their mood. That's what we do: we improvise, we juggle, we step on each other, we make do with who we are.\" The result is a small miracle of tenderness and irreverence.","brand":"Babx","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58239985680728,"sku":null,"price":24075499.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0898\/4943\/0360\/files\/3521383459256.jpg?v=1787438587","url":"https:\/\/vinyles.com\/en-us\/products\/babx_nougaro_2019","provider":"Vinyles.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}