London Jazz Festival, in association with BBC Radio 3, Friday 11 to Sunday 20 November 2011

Juliette Gréco returns to London for her first concert in ten years. She grew up in post-war Paris, meeting Sartre, Cocteau, Boris Vian and Miles Davis in a whirl of jazz and existentialism, and making great songs like Prévert’s Je Suis Comme Je Suis her own. She still sings Jacques Brel, Leo Ferré and lots of Serge Gainsbourg songs, but as well as drawing on her classic repertoire, she is still reaching out to new voices. She is accompanied by her pianist and husband Gérard Jouannest (Brel’s long-time musical director) and Jean-Louis Matinier on accordion.
 
“She performs with the power, passion and verve of someone just starting out, but she’s been in this game since the forties when, as a tough rebel chick in post-war Paris, she encountered Jean-Paul Sartre.  She became a muse not only for Sartre but for Camus, Cocteau, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg, some of whom wrote strange, poetic songs for her.  She’s Edith Piaf for Sous Les Ciels De Paris, while during a Gainsbourg number, she plays her slinky body like an accordion, with pianist’s fingers.  There’s a song that was written for and about her – L’Eternel Feminin – and, as she wipes the floor with her audience, it never seemed more apt” The Independent

Part of the London Jazz Festival in association with BBC Radio 3