Album review

Charles Aznavour

Aznavour Goes Back To His Jazz Roots.

Paris 

20/10/2000 - 

Just a few days before his run of "farewell" concerts at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, Charles Aznavour - one of the greatest living French chanson legends of all time - has come storming back into the music news with Aznavour 2000. This smoothly-produced new album finds the chanson star turning back towards sumptuous orchestrations and working with the hot young French arranger of the moment, Yvan Cassar.

Aznavour 2000 kicks off with a song called Le jazz est revenu (Jazz is Back) - and the title of the opening track says it all! France's favourite chanson star has turned back to his first love, jazz, a genre he had already experimented with at the beginning of his career with his partner Pierre Roche. (Committed Aznavour fans will also remember the singer's legendary scat on Le Feutre taupé released back in 1948!)

On his new album, Aznavour 2000, the singer goes back to his first love with a passion, combining infectious jazz rhythms, vibrant brass sections and his own dynamic vocals. In short, Aznavour 2000 marks the definitive return of Mister Swing and Aznavour proves he is as comfortable fronting a full-scale big band as he is singing with a smaller, club-style ensemble. In fact, the album finds Aznavour continuing to exploit the same musical vein he had tapped into on Jazznavour (the 1998 album on which he teamed up with a host of international jazz greats including Petrucciani, Dianne Reeves, Richard Galliano, Eddy Louiss and Jacky Terrasson).

As he prepares to perform a series of "official" farewell concerts at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, (October 24th - December 17th), Aznavour proves his songwriting career is far from over. Aznavour 2000 features no less than 13 new songs (including two from the musical Lautrec which Aznavour launched in London a few months ago) and only one cover version. Juggling a certain loyalty to his old swing style against the desire to present inventive new material, Aznavour has teamed up with Yvan Cassar, one of the leading composers and arrangers of the moment.

Cassar has catapulted to the forefront of the French music scene over the past two years, touring with Claude Nougaro and writing the musical arrangements on Nougaro's acclaimed new album, Embarquement immédiat. What's more, besides working with a number of French singers (from Melaine Favenec to Lynda Lemay), Cassar masterminded the symphonic orchestrations on Patricia Kaas's new album, Live, and he will also be looking after orchestral arrangements for the French diva's upcoming concert in Paris (on November 2nd).

But the crowning glory of Cassar's work to date has to be the orchestration and production of Aznavour 2000. Cassar, who conducted the orchestra on Aznavour's new album himself, turned back to 50s and 60s French variété for inspiration, adopting the opulent full-blown style of Michel Legrand, Michel Colombier, André Popp and Alain Goraguer. Breaking with the current vogue for having orchestras play a meagre 'synthesiser' score, Cassar gives free rein to his orchestra, his arrangements allowing for real depth and density. Dans tes bras (the first single release from Aznavour 2000), borrows its heady ostinato from Ravel's Bolero while on the track J’ai peur Cassar combines piano and vocals with a sumptuous string section.

Cassar's jazz arrangements inject an energy and vitality into Aznavour's new album, bringing a warm funk feel to Elle a le swing au corps, an intimate club-style sensuality to On m’a donné and a superbly mellow swing to the big band arrangements on La Formule un and Nos avocats. Once again in his fifty-year career, Aznavour flirts with the musical mainstream while proving he's very much a case apart. In an age when French radio stations are dominated by syrupy variété, Aznavour comes charging in with Cassar's powerful arrangements and his own distinctive voice.

There's no doubt about it, Aznavour 2000 is a highly prized vintage - and one which the author himself considers a symbolic work. Aznavour insisted on writing all the lyrics and music on his new album himself, and fans will find their idol returning to several of his favourite themes (nostalgia for forgotten ambitions, the eroticism of lost illusions and the torments of love). Aznavour 2000 is not all angst and heartache, however. Aznavour presents many of the songs on the new album as a celebration of love, sensuality and adulthood (an age when the unruly passions of adolescence settle into complicity).

Taking his brush to everyday life and to the male psyche in particular, Aznavour paints dramatic full-scale canvases where others would venture a mere watercolour. Highlights of Aznavour 2000> include Elle a le swing au corps (a song which fuses romantic tenderness with the brutality of male desire), the slow waltz-style love ballad Je danse avec l’amour and a surprisingly comic version of the Juliette Gréco hit Habillez-vous. In short, Aznavour 2000 is a worthy new addition to Aznavour's discography, which already ranks as one of the most respected French chanson collections of all time.

Aznavour 2000, EMI

Bertrand  Dicale