Live
Juliette Gréco (London Jazz Festival) Royal Festival Hall 21/11/10
Concluding my dip into the London Jazz Festival it was time to see an absolute french legend Juliette Gréco. A fifties and sixties bohemian chanteuse who famously had a mad affair with the iconic trumpeter Miles Davis. Tonight and well into her 80s' (she took part in the resistance don't you know) the muse took to the stage with husband pianist Gerard Jouannest (Jacque Brel's long-time musical partner) and accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier.
The huge auditorium of the RFH somehow managed to become an intimate atmosphere for this mysterious singer and actress who took to the stage in a highly theatrical and gesticulating manner. To say she is an acquired taste might be bombastic but I found her half singing half talking style vaguely annoying. I was enjoying the jaunty piano and darting accordion but I couldn't help thinking to myself "I'd wish she'd just shut up!"
I persevered (thinking to myself how would I be able to review it if I'd have walked out and what of the hot date I was on too?) luckily things changed. Firstly the time signature and then her smokey sultry voice began to sing! She was dressed in an amazing type bat dress (that explained why the goths were there then!) yet every time she flung her arms open wide she looked like Dracula's bride but this just added to the smouldering intensity that she was slowly mustering!
Still passionate, still exotically enigmatic, my cockles were warming to her heart as the rich velvety sentiment of post war,"gitane on the left bank oh I jammed with Django" vibe suddenly hit me. Her true style and gallic stardom shone on Brel's 'J'arrive' sensual, demanding, and petulant all at the same time (blimey this sexually charged octogenarian is high maintenance!) Her fervour on this was quite intoxicating and you can see why a young Marlon Brando fell for her, this darling of the existentialist writers Sartre and Camus is still very much with us and a woman who never looks back. She's happy to honour it but Gréco, to her credit is still fervently working with contemporary french musicians, even rappers such as Abd Al Malik. For this you have to take your hat off to her, the wild card of the festival has come up trumps! Vivre la resistance!
Words Emrys Baird
