The late Oscar and Grammy Award-winning French composer Michel Legrand would be turning 90 this year. There is no doubt about his place as one of the most significant composers of film music and musicals. However, his work was not limited to the cinema, as his compositions were given treatments by countless musicians in different genres. Naturally, major figures in the jazz scene were no exception to this. It would also be impossible to list how many artists from the world of improvisational music used Legrand songs as starting points. These included Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, just to mention a few.
This time, Hungarian jazz great Kálmán Oláh has elected to show what Legrand’s songs mean to him with adaptations of eleven of the French master’s melodies. As we have become accustomed to seeing, it is not “merely” his impressive skills as a pianist that Oláh demonstrates to the audience: he is also known for his expertly and sensitively constructed new arrangements. He has now conceived of a unique sound for singers from two different genres: this meeting between Erika Miklósa and Vera Tóth promises to be a veritable musical treat. The leader of the jazz band is the world-famous drummer Elemér Balázs, and joining them to make the Michael Legrand Songbook truly singular will be the Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Yentl, The Thomas Crown Affair, and we could list many more. All of these titles sound familiar, don’t they? We loved both the films and their music. We often find one or another of these tunes coming to mind and start humming it on the bus, on the tram, or while walking around. Now we can hear these.
Presented by: Jewish Art Days, Brice Management
