Martial Solal

Martial Solal

Birth : 1927-08-23, Algiers, Algeria

History

Martial Solal (born August 23, 1927) is a French jazz pianist and composer. Solal was born in Algiers, French Algeria, to Algerian Jewish parents. He was persuaded to study clarinet, saxophone, and piano by his mother, who was an opera singer. He was expelled from school in 1942 because of his parents' Jewish ancestry. Algeria was a French colony, and the Vichy regime in France was following Nazi policies. Solal educated himself after having studied classical music in school. He imitated music he heard on the radio. When he was 15, he performed publicly for United States Army audiences. After settling in Paris in 1950, he began working with Django Reinhardt and U.S. expatriates such as Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He formed a quartet (occasionally also leading a big band) in the late 1950s, although he had been recording as a leader since 1953. Solal then began composing film music, eventually providing over 20 scores. He composed music for Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature film Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960). In 1963, he made an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island; the Newport '63 album purporting to be a recording of this gig is actually a studio recreation with overdubbed applause, as documented in the sleeve notes of some later reissues. At this time, his trio included bassist Guy Pedersen and drummer Daniel Humair. From 1968, he performed and recorded with Lee Konitz in Europe and the U.S. In its January 2011 issue, The Gruppen Review published a 12-page interview in which Solal discusses his work as an eternal "researcher in jazz". Source: Article "Martial Solal" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Profile

Martial Solal

Movies

Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe
Self
A comprehensive history of European Jazz, exploring the origins of the US-influenced Jazz clubs after the Second World War, the first steps independent of American jazz and the various changes of direction that have repeatedly occurred in European jazz in the search for that "own voice" that European jazz musicians have helped to form. Featuring the great masters of European jazz such as Chris Barber, Jan Garbarek, Juliette Gréco, Stefano Bollani and Till Brönner, to name but a few.
Actors
Original Music Composer
Les Acteurs is the absurd story of Jean-Pierre Marielle desperately waiting for a cup of hot water, the story of a conspiracy against actors, the story of aging actors whose careers are slowly less active than they used to be, but a stunning tribute to French actors and their cinema.
Ballade à blanc
Original Music Composer
Backfire
Music
A greedy gold smuggler hires a handsome hero to transport a stolen fortune to a new hideout accompanied by the smuggler's sexy girlfriend.
A Touch of Treason
Original Music Composer
The French Secret Services are out to recover some secret documents stolen from a Russian cultural attaché, while he struggles to prove his innocence. That is, if he is innocent.
Léon Morin, Priest
Original Music Composer
In World War II, the widow Barny sees the Italian soldiers arriving in occupied Saint Bernard while walking to her job. Barny lives with her daughter and works correcting tests and feels a great attraction toward her boss Sabine. When the Germans arrive, Barny sends her half-Jewish daughter to live on a farm in the countryside and finds that Sabine's brother has been arrested and sent to a concentration camp. The atheist Barny decides to baptize her daughter to protect her and chooses priest Léon Morin to discuss with him themes related to religion and Catholicism and Léon lends books to her. Barny converts to Catholicism and becomes closer to Léon, feeling an unrequited desire for him.
The Flamboyant Sex
Music
24 hours in the life of three Swedish girls in Paris. Seduced by the excitement but short of money they earn a few francs as nude models in an art school.
It Happened All Night
Music
Michel Ferréol reluctantly meets up with an old school friend, Antoine Fiesco. Michel didn’t like Antoine much when they were at school and tries to get away by making an excuse. He changes his mind when Antoine introduces him to his wife, a beautiful brunette named Christine.
Breathless
Original Music Composer
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.
Two Men in Manhattan
Original Music Composer
Two French journalists become embroiled in a criminal plot in New York City involving a disappeared United Nations diplomat.