Various Artists - L'age D'or Du Jazz Belge - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Lying between classical music and jazz, InchcrossoverInch is a hybrid that went down in the history of 20th century music as a genre of it's own. Giving birth in turn to jazz fusion, the crossover genre culminated in the Seventies, notably with the of Claude Bolling's InchSuite for fluteInch with Jean-Pierre Rampal (FA443), a record that sold enough to guarantee it's 10-year stay in the charts of American magazine InchBillboardInch. This anthology prepared by Jean-Baptiste Mersiol takes us back to the experiments of crossover's greatest pioneers, namely Jacques Loussier, André Hodeir, André Prévin and Claude Bolling. Beginning in the late Fifties, they were the first to bridge the divide between Europe's written music and America's jazz improvisations.

Not only a major figure in the record industry and show business, Eddie Barclay also left his mark on the InchpeopleInch pages of the tabloids he was famous for the parties he hosted for socialites in Saint-Tropez, while his friendships with the stars made him a public legend. Yet few remember that Eddie Barclay was a precursor he was one of the first in France to import jazz and rock'n'roll records from America. When he created his own tag, Barclay Records, he brought in legendary music figures like Quincy Jones and Boris Vian, Frank Ténot or Daniel Filipacchi to work with him on the artistic side. Not many today know that Eddie Barclay was also a pianist, bandleader and jazz fan with a hundred of his own recordings to his name... Here Jean Baptiste Mersiol throws light on the forgotten history of this arranger, performer and producer with a 3 album anthology that deserves it's place in music history.

This anthology devoted to the riches of French advertising provides a refresher course filled with historic sketches and popular ditties, each more delightfully dated than the next. Beginning with the first ads of the talkies - which arrived with the first bulky radio sets - and continuing up to the Sixties, these went out over the air in France's glorious post-war years, when consumerism was all the rage, and also a little drink before dinner, as you can hear in Jean-Baptiste Mersiol's collection, a kind of audio postcard sent back from another age that seems exquisitely vintage today.