Ravel and Jazz

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Ravel and Jazz

Claude Debussy: «Pour l’Égyptienne», excerpt from Six Épigraphes antiques
Maurice Ravel: «Passacaille», excerpt from Trio avec piano
Érik Satie: «La Vocation», excerpt from Fils des étoiles
Maurice Ravel: Berceuse on the name of Gabriel Fauré
Maurice Ravel: Menuet
Lionel Belmondo: YAL to the memory of Yusef Lateef
Maurice Ravel: Menuet on the name of Haydn
Maurice Ravel: «Le Paon», excerpt from Histoires naturelles
Maurice Ravel: «Kaddisch», excerpt from Deux Mélodies hébraïques
Claude Debussy: « La plus que lente »

Lionel Belmondo, saxophones
Stéphane Belmondo, trumpet and flugelhorn
Jacky Terrasson, piano
Thomas Bramerie, double bass
Lukmil Perez, drums

National Orchestra of Lyon
Christophe Larrieu, conductor


“Take Jazz Seriously!” It was under this injunctive title that in 1928, during his trip to the United States, Maurice Ravel addressed the readers of the review Musical Digest and, by extension, all the composers of his time. A few months earlier, the second movement of his Sonata for violin and piano, “Blues”, was presented in his own words as “stylized jazz, more French than American in character, perhaps”. What musician could better celebrate Ravel's sensitivity to American syncopated music, its melodies and the expressiveness of its blue notes than Lionel Belmondo? Since Hymne au soleil, an album hailed with three Victoires de la musique in 2003, the saxophonist has tracked the correspondences between jazz and classical composers such as Gabriel Fauré, Lili Boulanger and, of course, Ravel. Accompanied by his brother Stéphane Belmondo, one of the most sensitive trumpet players in European jazz, and the great Franco-American pianist Jacky Terrasson, Lionel Belmondo arranged this repertoire for symphony orchestra and jazz quintet, on a commission from the National Opera from Bordeaux. An original way to salute Ravel's modernity!