Honneur Aux Barbus !

Description

At a time when nearly half of the French male population sports a beard, it is time to pay tribute, fifty years after their separation, to the remarkable vocal quartet: Les Quatre Barbus (composed of Jacques Tritsch (1913-1991), bass, Marcel Quinton (1916-1984), baritone, Pierre Jamet (1910-2000), tenor (who joined in 1942), and Georges Thibaut (1911-1998), countertenor (who joined in 1949)). In 1938, Jacques Tritsch, a literature student, formed a vocal group with the ambition of enlivening youth festivals and holiday camps in a very "Popular Front" spirit. The group was called "Quatuor vocal des Compagnons de Route." In the spring of 1939, they were hired by Agnès Capri at her cabaret and recorded a record. The group was partially dispersed by World War II: Jacques Tritsch (bass) and Marcel Quinton (baritone) remained. In 1942, Pierre Jamet (tenor), a former Éclaireur de France, founder of the Youth Hostels choir and close to Jacques Prévert, joined them; finally, in 1949, Georges Thibaut (choirmaster of Saint-Germain-des-Prés) joined the group and would stay until their farewell in 1969. Immediately after the war, they toured cabarets and decided in 1949 to permanently call themselves "Les Quatre Barbus." It was during this period that they adopted a look that would follow them for over twenty years: a simple outfit with a jacket over a sailor's shirt, a hat (of varying styles depending on the shows and years), and above all, a beard (sometimes real but often fake). The staging was very simple, with the emphasis mainly on musical interpretation. Their style was reminiscent of the Frères Jacques. Over the next twenty years, they would record a vast repertoire of great eclecticism: children's songs, popular songs, "left bank" songs fashionable in the cabarets of the 1950s (Jean Villard, Brassens, Boris Vian, Pierre Dac, and Francis Blanche), risqué songs (very toned down in the recorded versions), and even an album of anarchist songs in 1969. But their absolute genius remains tied to the parodic recordings of famous classical tunes on which Pierre Dac and Francis Blanche laid absurd lyrics. For young vocal groups like "Chanson plus Bifluorée" (EPM), Les Quatre Barbus will remain a model of perfection. And for all those who loved them in the 50s or 60s, they will remain a good luck charm as old age begins to cloud the horizon.