The Film Song Affair

Description

Jean-Michel Bernard is a singular pianist who has found his place at the crossroads of musical genres. With a solid classical background, combined with the freedom and expertise of jazz greats, he is resolutely the pianist of cinema, between interpretation, composition and reinvention, unique in his genre. The man whom Ray Charles - with whom he played for four years - called "Genius!", or Lalo Schifrin called "Soul brother", has developed all his talents throughout his immense career: composer, orchestrator, concert pianist, arranger and producer. Since his encounter with Benny Goodman, through to the long-standing friendship and musical partnership developed with Michel Portal, classical clarinetist Paul Meyer has always kept the world of jazz within reach. A flagship member of the famous Vents Français, with a worldwide reputation, a prodigiously gifted instrumentalist laden with awards, now also an international conductor (Principal Conductor in Tokyo and Mannheim, invited by orchestras around the world), Paul Meyer asserts his Classical culture but willingly lets himself be guided beyond or elsewhere... as long as the music speaks to him in colors. The Film Song Affair, or the natural meeting of two great masters, both guardians of temples with doors and windows wide open. Two artists who have long since moved beyond the desire to prove anything and wish for music to be above all luminous and obvious. They are total artists, with unlimited abilities, with curiosity always sharpened, the kind that sparks beautiful inter-family encounters. Paul Meyer entrusted his unique cantabile to Jean-Michel Bernard, who invited him into cinema, into a musical environment that would also dare to let loose. To make amends for skipping the lyrics of these sublime film songs, almost all drawn from The American Songbook, the singing had to surpass itself even further, for the works to tremble nonetheless, to even fidget... and for the spirit of the great films visited not to be betrayed. Such is the mission of reinvention that Jean-Michel Bernard has always set for himself, as an alchemist of cultures, also a tightrope walker between musical genres, especially when they unfold on screen; a mission that Paul Meyer has made his own on this project, without any violence.