Reynold da Silva's Silva Screen Records has been constructing a series of "essential" collections of major film composers' scores usually by making new recordings of portions of those scores or compiling recordings previously made for other projects, most often employing the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. For this Michel Legrand album, the label has actually enlisted Legrand as conductor of the Flemish Radio Orchestra (whose contributions are not noted until you examine the CD booklet), with a few additional jazz musicians, plus Legrand himself on piano and (during the extended suite from The Go-Between) harpsichord. Still, these are new recordings, made in December 2004, and should not be confused with actual soundtrack recordings. Legrand oversees excerpts from some of his most popular scores, leaning heavily on the major themes, such as "I Will Wait for You" from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, "Theme from Summer of '42," and "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair.

Michel Legrand was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. After showing great promise as a jazz arranger — working notably with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Bill Evans — he turned his hand to the French “chanson” genre and composed for Boris Vian and Henri Salvador, Jacques Brel or Maurice Chevalier. He then became probably the most famous composer of melodies for France’s Nouvelle Vague filmmakers — Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, Jean-Luc Godard —, but it was only the beginning, for he went on to be one of the most illustrious film composers in the world. This 10CD set contains his works during that first great period, devoted to all the music released under his name. Patrick FRÉMEAUX

Michel Legrand has spent most of his life as a composer in the studios and for films, but this release is a jazz classic. Legrand took 11 famous jazz compositions and arranged them for three different groups. Tenor great Ben Webster, flutist Herbie Mann, four trombonists, and a rhythm section perform pieces by Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Django Reinhardt ("Nuages"), and the Count Basie-associated "Blue and Sentimental." A big band with trumpeters Art Farmer and Donald Byrd and altoist Phil Woods plays "Stompin' at the Savoy," "A Night in Tunisia," and Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist." The most famous session has Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Phil Woods, Herbie Mann, pianist Bill Evans, harp, vibes, baritone, and a rhythm section performing music by Thelonious Monk, John Lewis, Jelly Roll Morton ("Wild Man Blues"), and Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz"…

Michel Legrand, who has been loved around the world since his death in 2019, celebrates the 90th anniversary of his birth on February 25, 2022. Musician of many classic films such as "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," "The Girls of Rochefort," and "The Skin of the Donkey," Legrand was a music legend who broke down the boundaries between jazz, symphonic music, musical comedy, and popular music, and a three-time Academy Award winner who, over the decades He has left behind many works with themes that remain in people's memories. A tribute album to Legrand's music, "Legrand (Re)Imagined," will be released by Decca Records.

Jazz music from great italian movies composed by the famous film composers Piero Umiliani, Piero Piccioni Armando Trovaioli, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Michel Legrand, Manuel De Sica, Benedetto Ghiglia and Goffredo Petrassi as well as pioneering musicians such as Giorgio Gaslini, Chet Baker, here are some of the earliest jazz soundtracks that emerged from the golden age of 'Commedia All'Italiana' through to cult experimental cinema.

Michel Jean Legrand (1932–2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many songs. His scores for two of the films of French New Wave director Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), earned Legrand his first Academy Award nominations. Legrand won his first Oscar for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), and additional Oscars for Summer of '42 (1971) and Barbra Streisand's Yentl (1983).

'Lumieres' marks the first UK release for this critically acclaimed performer, exclusively signed to Decca. The album showcases Muraji's distinct guitar arrangements of magnificent piano standards such as Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No.1 and Gymnopédie No.3, Ravel's Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte and The Summer Knows by the famous film composer Michel Legrand, all of which convey themselves as original guitar repertoire. Muraji's core repertoire is reflected with the inclusion of Pierre de Breville's Fantaisie Pour Guitare, and the prolific Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu's Water Color Scalor. She also plays homage to one of the guiding lights of the guitar, Roland Dyens, with her version of Suade No.3. The result is an album of imagination and originality- an innovator interpreting innovators.

This CD contains a fascinating collection of soundtracks by the great composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist Michel Legrand from the early stages of his long career. At the age of 84 at this writing, Legrand has written over 200 film and television scores in addition to many memorable songs. He is best known for his often haunting film music and scores, such as those from the nine movies contained here, which present a good sample of his work. Among the many highlights here is Legrand’s first version of the classic song “Watch What Happens”, which he composed as “Roland Rêve” for the 1960 film Lola.

An emblematic figure of her time, Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) taught and inspired several generations of musicians, from Igor Stravinsky to Quincy Jones. Her musical and pedagogical philosophy, demanding yet highly stimulating, influenced the entire twentieth century. Astrig Siranossian, a rising star of the cello who now joins Alpha for several recordings, is fascinated by this musical personality whom everyone respectfully called ‘Mademoiselle’. She met some of her most illustrious students, including the late Michel Legrand, and Daniel Barenboim who has agreed to accompany her in a piece on the album. With the pianist Nathanaël Gouin, she has devised a very eclectic programme, including the three pieces for cello and piano written by Nadia Boulanger in 1915, three years before the death of her sister Lili.

Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere CD release: "ODE TO BILLY JOE" Composed and Conducted by Michel Legrand. “Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”. In 1967, Billie Joe jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge was one of the hottest topics of that summer, all over the world. The fact that it all had to do with a surprise number one hit song shows the power of great storytelling. Everyone was conjecturing what it was that was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge and why Billie Joe had killed himself. It became part of popular culture almost instantly. The song garnered eight Grammy nominations, winning three for Gentry and one for arranger Jimmie Haskell. Nine years later, Warner Bros. decided to turn the song into a feature film and hired author Herman Raucher (Summer of ’42) to do so. Max Baer, Jr. directed and produced the film – he was, at the time, best known for playing Jethro Bodine on the hit TV series The Beverly Hillbillies. Young actors Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor were cast in the leads, along with Joan Hotchkiss, James Best (giving a sensitive and wonderful performance), and others. Raucher changed the spelling of Billie to Billy and his screenplay fleshed out the events of the song, and gave the audience the reason for Billy Joe’s jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Ice Station Zebra (1968) is a Cold War thriller following a U.S. submarine and its mysterious British passenger on a top-secret mission to the North Pole. Based on a novel by Alistair MacLean, the film features fine performances by Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine and an all-male supporting cast. The combination of realistic military protocol and high-adventure espionage—as well as groundbreaking special effects and production design—won the film many admirers, among them the late Howard Hughes. Michel Legrand was best-known for pop-based scores like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Thomas Crown Affair, but was no less creative and dynamic in the symphonic Hollywood idiom (The Three Musketeers). His score for Ice Station Zebra is at once epic yet also offbeat, with powerful main themes dressed in an intricate web of mystery and suspense. The film is first and foremost a military story, but in Legrand's hands it becomes almost like a Cold War ballet, with a polished, artistic sheen to its danger. Legrand himself provided the terrific orchestrations and conducted the 75-piece orchestra in a five-channel stereo recording.

Michel Legrand's abundantly lyrical soundtrack to Jacques Demy's 1964 movie musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg faithfully evokes the film's predominant theme of young love foiled by adult reality. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg's overriding melancholia finds a voice in two main melodic motifs Legrand uses throughout the soundtrack, the first from the Legrand jazz standard "Watch What Happens" and the second from his song "I Will Wait for You." Legrand's considerable arranging abilities are on display here as he works the recurring themes through a variety of settings: tragic duets cloaked in dramatic string passages, broken-down cabaret soliloquies, and even a tango piece à la Astor Piazzolla. A prevalent jazz waltz theme also seesaws its way through the score, providing a break from the gloom. As with his later Demy soundtrack, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Legrand does integrate jazz into the mix, but not in such pervasive fashion; occasional big-band outbursts and light jazz backgrounds ultimately take a back seat to Legrand's preferred chanson mode. Combining Debussy's opaque melodies and Richard Rodgers song economy, he transforms the whimsical French song of Piaf and Trenet into petite arias. For Legrand it comes down to the song, and there are plenty of good ones on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

2008 three CD collection of soundtracks from classic movies of our time. With a generous playing time of over three hours, this stunning set offers something for everyone: fromthe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's 'Pirates of the Caribeean-Dead Man's Chest' and 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' to other orignial perfromances as heard in the classic films like, The Godfather, Cinema Paradiso, Taxi Drive, Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands to name but a few! Enjoy unforgettable movie themes from a wide range of famous composers from Yo Yo Ma, John Williams, John Barry and more.

The Appointment was a 1969 drama starring Omar Sharif as a lonely Italian attorney who romances and weds a beautiful model (Anouk Aimee)—all the while suspecting that she is a highly priced prostitute. Although directed by Sidney Lumet, The Appointment was a troubled production that led to its receiving three fully recorded scores by four composers. FSM's premiere release of the original soundtrack features selections from each—making for a rare and fascinating look at three different approaches for a single film.

Born in 1931, Michel Legrand, who is best-known as a film score composer, was in his late teens and early '20s in the decade following World War II as he divided his time between classical studies and playing jazz piano in Paris nightclubs. Obviously, he remembers the era well, and on this album he has arranged a series of songs from the period, with a few dating back to the 1930s, though he may have known them from hit versions in the '50s, such as "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."…