01	Prelude No.1 In C Major From The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846						04:59
	02	Italian Converto 1. Allegro						04:58
	03	Italian Converto 2. Andante						05:29
	04	Italian Converto 3. Presto						03:28
	05	Air On A G String						03:36
	06	Toccata & Fugue In D Minor						10:52
	07	Pastorale In C Minor						06:47
	08	Jesus, Joy Of Man's Desiring						04:38
	09	Gavotte In B Minor From Suite In D Major, BWV 1068						03:50
	10	Fugue No.5 In D Major						04:31
	11	Gavotte In D Major						07:26

Jacques Loussier Trio-The Best of Play Bach

Year: Reissued in 2004
Erscheinungstermin: 20.02.2004
Originally Released in 1993/1994
SACD-63590 * 5-Channel Surround

Style: Third Stream

Musicians: Jacques Loussier (piano), Vincent Charbonnier (bass), André Arpino (drums)

Review: Combining jazz and ""classical"" or ""serious"" or whatever we call European Art music these days is by no means a new idea. Indeed, when I set out to document the phenomenon I was astonished at how pervasive it has been, and the number of jazz artists who have employed it, (in spite of which there is still no satisfactory category for the genre–this is not ""Third Stream""music.) From the time of Paul Whiteman and Joe Venuti, through Ellington's revamping of the Nutcracker to Miles Davis' and Gil Evans' explorations of Rodrigo, Paul Desmond's appropriation of large chunks of Prokofiev, Fred Hersch's fine recordings of French and Russian Romantic music--The French Collection and Red Square Blue (Angel/EMI)--Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Eddie Daniels, Hubert Laws, Victor Feldman . . . the list goes on and on. I will probably publish an essay on the subject at some point. For now, suffice to say that it makes a lot of sense. There is a wealth of wonderful material available from great composers which is already harmonically compatible and requires just the slightest shift of rhythmic emphasis to work perfectly as jazz. What sets French pianist Jacques Loussier apart is that this is virtually all he does. And he has been doing it since 1959. Now, for his 70th birthday, Telarc has released a Super Audio tribute album, The Best of Play Bach.

On the face of it making jazz versions of J.S. Bach compositions seems like a bad idea. But Loussier makes it work beautifully. He began experimenting with the idea as a conservatory student, but it was some years later that he finally recorded the first Play Bach album with Pierre Michelot and Christian Garros. It was an instant success and Loussier never looked back, concertizing extensively and recording numerous albums between 1959 and 1978, initially for Decca in the early 1960s, when, having sold over six million records, he retired to concentrate on his own compositions. The tercentenary of Bach's birth in 1985 tempted Loussier to reform his trio, again focusing exclusively on Bach until recently, when he branched out and began to explore other composer's work, recording albums of Beethoven, Handel, Debussy, Ravel and Satie, all with the same approach. Reviewing each score, he determines which sections lend themselves to a straight classical reading, which ones to jazz interpretation, which to out and out improvisation and so forth. With subtle support from Vincent Charbonnier on bass and drummer André Arpino, he works his magic on several well-known Bach works, with the three-movement Italian Concerto as the centerpiece.

Again, it shouldn't work–swinging Bach could be a cornball disaster. But Loussier and his trio approach it with

Recorded At – Studio Miraval
Mixed At – Sound Stage Studios

Credits

Art Direction, Design – Anilda Carrasquillo
Bass – Vincent Charbonnier
Drums – André Arpino
Engineer – Patrice Quef
Executive Producer – Robert Woods
Mastered By [Mastered For SACD By] – Michael Bishop
Piano, Arranged By – Jacques Loussier
Producer – Elizabeth Note
Producer, Liner Notes – Jacques Loussier
Supervised By [SACD Production Supervisor] – Erica Brenner

Notes
Recorded at Studio Miraval, Le Val, France, 1994 and 1994