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Juliette Gréco
Life in black and white
Paris
29/01/1999 -
So today there is the same scenario, with a new album, "Un jour d'été et quelques nuits", accompanied by the publication of a superb book of black and white photos, "Juliette Gréco", by Actes Sud, and prefaced, of course, by Josyane Savigneau.
The first impression , when first hearing Juliette Gréco's new album, "Un jour d'été et quelques nuits', is of an embarrassing time-lag: you are listening to a 1998 CD and it sounds like a fifties 78. Her critics will not fail to ask why Barbara, for example, born, only three years after Juliette, in 1930, has managed to record an opus which escapes from the pitiless, totalitarian glare of time: maybe this is due to Barbara's piano playing and minimalist orchestrations.
And yet, in this new album, Gréco's throaty voice is a true pleasure to the ear, warm, ironic, imperative and tender. And yet the lyrics are full of pure poetry, simple, straightforward, sometimes funny, always filled with humanity: the writer Jean-Claude Carrière, to confirm his entry into the guild of songwriters, has brought together twelve, very different, poems which are a pleasure to read on the album cover.
Well? So there are Gérard Jouannest's melodies which, while still subtle, are sometimes so subtle that the musical theme is forgotten. Yet this is the Gérard Jouannest who wrought the strong, identifiable melodies of "On n'oublie rien", "Mathilde", "Les Vieux", and many others for Jacques Brel. So, too, there are, above all, the orchestrations by François Rauber. His superfluous violins and arrangements are no doubt mainly responsible for the old fashioned impression that the 1998 listener gains from listening to this new album, and who wonders what it would have been like if some of the tunes and all the arrangements had been given to William Sheller, say, or (in an ideal world) Stephan Eicher and Dominique Blanc-Francard. A lovely voice, beautiful lyrics, tense piano and rhythmical cords, and there could have been a masterpiece.
It is true that in this album, you can almost feel the masterpiece under the surface: each time Gérard Jouannest decides to go straight to the point, and the orchestration returns to the simplicity of a trio. These are the best moments in the album: the last track, "Comme une idée", with its beautiful melody and cheeky lyrics based on the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, ending up on the theme of no future (well, more or less), is good… Another pleasant moment where the eternal Gréco appears briefly: "Le contre-Ecclésiaste", with guitar, flute and simple lyrics: "Ni la peau chaude d'un amant/ Ni l'éclat du soleil couchant/ Ni la caresse du vin frais/ Rien n'est vanité". Finally, the vaguely oriental "Réponse du Roi", a long fable on the ultimate superiority of the female sex, is without doubt the summit of the album: "Un ancien roi de l'Hindoustan/ Pour un crime sans doute infâme/ Fut puni par les dieux, et très / Sévèrement, puisqu'il fut transformé en femme". In this exercise in irony, Gréco's voice is, naturally, irreplaceable. As, indeed, it is at the other extreme of emotion, in the poignant "C'était un train de nuit", in which the quivering life can be discerned in a train that you tremblingly suspect is full of prisoners being taken to the concentration camps.
Little by little,, despite your initial dislike, despite the untimely violins (or perhaps, because of them?) this astonishing black and white album insidiously draws you into its velvety, pure vintage depths. You let yourself drift back to the times when an expresso at a little table on the terrace at the Café de Flore on the Boulevard St Germain cost a mere 50 (old) francs (today's 0,50 francs, ndlr). Today's daydreamer can keep his dream alive with the book of old photos published by Actes Sud, "Juliette Gréco", which evokes memories of beautiful friends of 1950 (p. 27), the wide awake look of an astonishingly young looking Miles Davis (p 23), the adoring eyes of Serge Gainsbourg (p. 43), and suspicious looking complicity with Ferré (p. 50). This collection of black and white snaps, by various authors, sometimes amateur, often composed, and always good, contains a theatrical appearance, hands on hips, of Gréco signed Robert Doisneau ("in the wings at the Rose Rouge, 1950") and superb compositions by Irmeli Jung ("Portrait, 1972") and Kaku Kurita ("during a show in Japan, 1986").
Once you have gone through both these works, you realise that "Un jour et quelques nuits" is clearly not intended to be of today, but as something from a time warp. One of those doors that upon into the infinite and its two components, love and death.
Jean-Claude Demari
- Juliette Gréco / Un jour d'été et quelques nuits (MEY 74 479-2)
-Juliette Gréco (Actes Sud/ Leméac, November 1998, 151 p)
