Mademoiselle In New York by Lucienne Renaudin Vary is guaranteed to add an extra layer of good cheer this Christmas
Lucienne Renaudin Vary Mademoiselle In New York
Warner Classics, out now
The trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary, France’s answer in both glamour and virtuosity to our own Alison Balsom, has a new album that’s guaranteed to add an extra layer of good cheer this Christmas.
The American jazzman Bill Elliott arranges and directs a colourful programme of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed versions of Big Apple classics such as Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story and George Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess.
We Brits get a look-in, too, because this delightful album was recorded in London last February, with the hugely versatile BBC Concert Orchestra. As well as the Porgy And Bess medley there’s more Gershwin with They All Laughed, from Gershwin’s final project, the film Shall We Dance?, issued in 1937, the year of his sadly premature death.
The trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary, France’s answer in both glamour and virtuosity to our own Alison Balsom, has a new album that’s guaranteed to add an extra layer of good cheer
And more Bernstein, too, with an imaginative arrangement of Glitter And Be Gay from his flawed masterpiece, Candide.
Stir in some Sidney Bechet, some Moondog and Bobby Hebb’s Sunny, and lovers of American music needn’t hesitate.
There’s some European stuff as well, as Lucienne displays her talents as a singer, in songs such as Charles Aznavour’s For Me Formidable.
She also gets a chance to whistle. As a kid, my mother stopped me whistling, saying it was common. But she never heard Lucienne!