The progression of European jazz musicians radically ascended from the days that Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins originally came to France and these 50s & 60s sessions of home grown artists sounded more authoritative than imitative. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised by these two reissues…
Tenor saxist Guy Lafitte had a strong growl similar to Coleman Hawkins, and the depth of a Chu Berry or Herschel Evans from the Count Basie Big Band. There are 16 tunes with his quartet with George Daly/vib, Raymond Fol-Andre Persiany/p, Alix Bret-Buddy Banks-Jaques Medvedko/b and Bernard planchenault-Jacues David-Teddy Martin/dr and a few cameo guests. Lafitte fills the room with a bel canto “Blue and Sentimental” and “I’ve Got the World On A String.” His vibrato is an old world charmer on “Stardust” and “Where Or When” and shows he can swing with the muscles bulging on “I Got Rhythm” and an snappy “Topsy.” In a quintette mode with Jean-Pierre Sasson adding his guitar, Lafitte sails like a pirate on “Flying Back” and sears through “What A Funny Moon.” More testosterone per note than 90% if today’s cacophonic hipsters.
The 1950s-60s was the high water mark for hard bop quintets, and pianist Georges Arvanitas lead one that was on a par with anything that Horace Silver or Art Blakey could put together at the same time. The team of Arvanitas with Bernard Vitet/fh, Francois Jeanneau/ts, Hichel Gaudry/b and Daniel Humair/dr had a feel similar to the Clifford Brown/Max Roach team of the 50s, with a deep dept to the composers of the proto-bop era like Monk and Powell. Vitet’s sweet horn is a perfect natural foil to Jeanneau’s low fat tenor on the soulful “This Here” and joyful “Bouncin’ With Bud” and Arvanitas is in a Bud Powell mood as he torridly tears through “Un Poco Loco” and “Bohemia After Dark.” Jeanneau does a nice aria on “Sonnymoon for Two” and “Monk’s Mood” with the rhythm team careening off the walls on “Bemsha Swing.” Pierre Michelot steps into the bass chair and leads the team on some left of cener moods as on Eric Dolphy’s “245” and Marital Solal’s “Extrait de Suite No 1” showing that these guys go hit from either side of the plate. This one’s a keeper!
The session notes and liner notes from both of these releases give wonderful information regarding the artists themselves but the milieu of jazz back in the days of De Gaulle.