vallierojas: Olivier Hutman's soundtrack to Paris

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Olivier Hutman's soundtrack to Paris

As part of our new online city guides, we asked music experts to compile a playlist to their city. Here, jazz musician Olivier Hutman charts the heart and soul of Paris from Edith Piaf to Serge Gainsbourg
? As featured on our Paris city guide

While compiling our new online guides to the major cities of the world, we thought it would be a good idea to serve up a soundtrack of songs associated with that city ? something to nod to as you sift through all the recommendations of places to stay, restaurants, cafes, bars, galleries... to transport you there, aurally.

All the recommendations in the guides come from writers and bloggers based in the cities, so it made sense to ask a local musician or artist to compile the playlists.

For Paris, we asked jazz pianist and composer Olivier Hutman to come up with a soundtrack to capture the moody romance of the French capital. Here's what he gave us - from matin�e idol Yves Montand's Les Grands Boulevards to the legendary Serge Gainsbourg's La Javanaise via Edith Piaf's Hymne A l'Amour and Django Reinhardt's Nuages. Tr�s Paris. But, as ever, we're sure you'll have your own soundtrack already to go. So let us know what tracks you'd have in your Paris playlist, and sling us a link ? or a mix ? after the jump. Happy listening

Yves Montand - Sous Le Ciel De Paris

This song conjures up a very typical image of Paris - the Paris of the Hollywood movies. The singer, Yves Montand, was the first of the few French stars to make it in Hollywood, and he was the typical French lover - married to Simone Signoret but he had an affair with Marilyn Monroe. His singing style is easy to identify. His songs about Paris were classics. And he was everything at once - a singer, actor, political activist, comic - he hung out with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir in the Cafe de Flore on the Left Bank.

Yves Montand - Les Feuilles Mortes

It's impossible to speak of Paris without including this song. The lyrics were written by the poet Jacques Pr�vert and were set to music by Joseph Kosma. Les Feuilles Mortes was used in the Marcel Carn� film Les Portes de la Nuit and is a jazz standard that's been covered by everyone from Miles Davies to Sonny Rollins.

Yves Montand - Les Grands Boulevards

Everyone used to hang around Les Grands Boulevards after the war - they're like the Oxford Street of Paris and are part of the fabric of the city.

Serge Gainsbourg - La Javanaise

Gainsbourg was the enfant terrible of French music, but he was also a fantastic composer. He had an affair with Brigitte Bardot but he married an English woman, Jane Birkin; he was not politically correct - he famously burned 500 francs live on TV and he was aggressive - but La Javanaise is a beautiful song and still one of his most popular.

Edith Piaf - Hymne A l'Amour

Edith Piaf is so important to Paris - her voice is incomparable, and she is rightly associated with the city. She was a street singer - she had a similar start to Billie Holiday in that sense - and her songs are in the realist tradition.

Django Reinhardt - Nuages

Django Reinhardt was our most famous jazz musician, from the Gypsy Manouche tradition. Paris has always had this great affinity and openness to jazz. All the American greats kept coming back here to play - they had a rough time with racism in the US, but were welcomed here. And Django is the sound of Paris jazz.

Charles Trenet - L'�me Des Po�tes

Charles Trenet is one of the two or three most famous French songwriters, and he stresses the importance of poetry in his lyrics to L'�me Des Po�tes. Trenet was in awe of poetry, and the lyrics to this song (which translates as The Soul of Poets) are beautiful - and capture the spirit of the city.

Olivier Hutman - Three For Vee

Ok, this one's by me - a waltz, which is very representative of French music and very representative of Paris.

John Lewis-Modern Jazz Quartet - Afternoon In Paris

The John Lewis-Modern Jazz Quartet - an Afro-American jazz outfit from the 1950s - was very involved in French culture. They also wrote Concorde and Versailles

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