Album review

Henri Salvador

Room With A View

Paris 

03/11/2000 - 

Henri Salvador's new album, Chambre avec vue, has been hailed as a major event in the French music world - and rightly so! The 83-year-old singer has won enormous respect for his distinctive vocals, his diverse career and his eternally jovial outlook. But, more than that, Chambre avec vue is a musical masterpiece uniting the talent of some France's finest young songwriters and composers. RFI/Musique marks the release of Chambre avec vue with a review followed by an interview with Monsieur Salvador, the man with the most famous laugh in France.

Albums rarely achieve the musical feat of generating a unique atmosphere from beginning to end. But on his latest album, Chambre avec vue, Henri Salvador achieves just that, bathing his songs in a deliciously melancholic languor. Chambre avec vue is one of those albums which absorbs you instantly, on a first listen, urging you to put it back on the CD-player and listen to it over and over again. That old Salvador magic weaves as strong a spell as ever, enchanting the listener from the opening notes of Jardin d'hiver (the first song on the album). And the charm remains unbroken as France's favourite music veteran croons his way through the next twelve perfect tracks, his velvet-smooth vocals backed by a few simple guitar chords and a soft, bossa-style rhythm. (It's no accident that after listening to Salvador sing, legendary Brazilian songwriter Tom Jobim slowed down the frenetic rhythm of samba and created bossa nova).

Jardin d'hiver, a track written by the talented young songwriter Keren Ann Zeidel, takes pride of place on Chambre avec vue – perhaps because it was this song which inspired Salvador to embark upon his new musical venture in the first place. Aided and abetted by the young music producer Marc di Domenico, Salvador (a committed jazz fan) has bathed his new album in the soft sounds of bossa and laid-back swing, weaving his suave vocals around melodies which fit his voice like a second skin. The 83-year-old star is at his best covering Je sais que tu sais, the classic recorded by Paul Misraki (friend and mentor from the early days of Salvador's career when he performed with Ray Ventura's orchestra). Fusing the subtle sound of a trumpet (an instrument which plays a dominant role throughout Chambre avec vue), Salvador murmurs sweet nothings into the microphone, vaunting the powers of love - and melting several hundred listeners' hearts in the process.

The problem with so many albums on the market these days is you have to skip through them looking for the best track. There's not a sign of this problem on Chambre avec vue – in fact, try skipping through the album looking for a bad track and we guarantee you won't find one! Instead, you'll find yourself caught up in the magic of Tour de manège or subsumed in the delicious 40s-style ambience of Jazz Méditerranée, a musical tour de force. Our only criticism of Salvador's new album is that the lyrics tend to have a slightly formulaic, uniform feel – which, perhaps, explains Salvador's reservations about modern-day songwriters. The 83-year-old veteran recently complained that: "The problem is most of them want to copy the American style of songwriting no matter what the cost. They completely overlook the specificity of the French language."

Salvador has chosen the songwriting team on his new album very carefully, surrounding himself with the likes of Art Mengo (who contributed two tracks to Chambre avec vue), Thomas Dutronc and Arnaud Garoux (responsible for the wonderfully spirited Mademoiselle) and Françoise Hardy (who not only wrote a song for Salvador but duetted with him in the studio). Henri Salvador recently confided to journalists that he had derived enormous pleasure from recording Chambre avec vue – all we can say is, merci Monsieur Salvador, for sharing that pleasure with your listeners!

Pascale Hamon

Chambre avec vue (Source/Virgin)
Also Maladie d'amour - the complete works of Henri Salvador (1942-1948) - is published by Frémeaux et associés.

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Six questions to Henri Salvador:

What was your first impression of Paris?
I came to Paris at the age of 7 and I remember being horribly disappointed because I'd always had this image of Paris being this beautiful white city. When I was growing up my father used to receive these catalogues from La Samaritaine with all the Paris landmarks drawn on the cover in white. When I arrived in Paris I was really shocked - I couldn't understand why all the buildings were so black and grimy. I grew to love Paris anyway - as it really was and not just an image. But I have to admit I was over the moon when Malraux had all the buildings cleaned up and restored the stonework to its original colour. It's funny, in my first dream of Paris I imagined this pure white city, I arrived and found it entirely black and then Malraux turned it grey!
I've had an ongoing love affair with Paris in all its different stages. As I came to France at an early age, I suppose you could say I'm a "coloured Parisian Gavroche!" I remember when I was a kid I was friends with this little Parisian boy who spoke this amazing street slang. I fell in love with this language even though I couldn't understand a word of it - all I knew was it made me laugh a lot! I discovered Paris through my little friend really. He used to show me around and tell me all these stories. I've always found Paris such a wonderfully enriching experience.

But you didn't launch your career in France, did you?
I suppose I launched my career in Brazil really. I was over there with Ray Ventura and I learnt the ins and outs of the profession performing in concert in Brazil. Things really took off over there for me and I ended up becoming a big star - apparently Caetano Veloso even wrote a song in my honour! So, you see, I've got something to show off about … Brazil is a wonderful country, especially from a musical point of view. In fact, I'd go so far as to say Brazil is the basis of all music. In terms of musical importance, I'd put Brazil at number 1, South Africa at number 2 and the United States at number 3, because the U.S. is the home of jazz and I'm a major jazz fan.

Is it true that you played a part in the invention of bossa nova?
Well, I did a song called Dans mon île in the Italian film Ropa di Notte and my friend Sergio Mendes claims that when Jobim saw the film in Brazil he said, "That's it - That's what we've got to do, slow down the samba tempo, add modern-sounding chords and turn it into a completely new rhythm". And that's how he invented bossa nova! I must admit I felt very proud when I heard that story.
What kind of working relationship did you have with your favourite songwriters?
Well, there's Maurice Pon - who, I'm happy to say, is still very much alive and well today - he was responsible for writing all those wonderful children's songs I did, such as Une chanson douce. The way I worked with Maurice is I'd sing him a melody over the phone, he'd record it on a tape recorder, then he'd go away, write the lyrics and ring me back. Maurice was amazingly talented.
And then there were my three other bosom buddies, Bernard Dimey, Bernard Michel and Boris Vian, who have sadly all passed away. I felt very lost and alone when they died. Vian and Dimey were the quickest - we'd come up with this idea and five minutes later Vian would have finished the lyrics! You'd give him an idea and he was off. And the ideas were easy - they flowed very naturally out of the conversations we had. Dimey was amazing, he could improvise an entire conversation in verse. He was completely drunk when he wrote Syracuse, you know. I improvised the first notes and he was away! He finished the lyrics long before I finished the music!

And what about Paul Misraki?
Paul Misraki is the root of all music to me. I was so influenced by his chord arrangements that when I wrote songs for him I was scared of pastiching him. He was a delightful man - a brilliant intellectual, a wonderful musician and a true friend. That's why on the new album I decided to pay homage to him, including a song he wrote a long, long time ago: Je sais que tu sais. I remember I first met Misraki at Ray Ventura's. He was the life and soul of the orchestra! The thing with Misraki is that he's known for all those popular songs like Tout va très bien, madame la marquise and people don't realise that he was also a very talented composer who wrote the most beautiful film scores.

What prompted you to record your new album?
It all started with the Léo Ferré song Avec le temps, really. I performed the song on a TV show and a friend of mine called me up after the show and said, "You've got such an amazing voice that I absolutely forbid you to retire. You have to make another album!" I just laughed and said I'd rather go off to the Bahamas and play boules. But she insisted, saying "No, seriously, I'll take care of everything!" A few days later she kept to her word and sent me this song called Le Jardin d'hiver, written by Keren Ann Zeidel and Benjamin Biolay. I fell in love with the song on the spot and that's what set the whole album in motion really. Keren Ann has this wonderful way of using the French language - she writes in the kind of French I've always dreamed of, like Vian or Dimey. After listening to Le Jardin d'hiver, I asked her if she had any other songs I could use. Then I met Marc di Domenico who found two songs by Art Mengo which suited me down to the ground. Marc asked me to get down to work writing some music, which I did but I wasn't totally convinced of the end result. But he seemed to like it, so we started looking for someone to write the lyrics.
We had a lot of trouble finding the right people though. Keren Ann ended up writing the lyrics for Chambre avec vue, which she seemed to write in no time at all. And then we asked Françoise Hardy to write a song for the album. She very kindly accepted and even sang it with me too. Françoise's son, Thomas Dutronc, also wrote a song for me. What we tried to do on the new album was find certain nuances and colours to bind the whole thing together. We ended up with thirteen songs which in the old days would have been B-sides - but they seem to have gone down really well with the public so far!

Interview: Véronique Mortaigne