CityLife

Michel Legrand and his Orchestra and Alison Moyet

Michel Legrand

FEW artists can boast a CV which runs from Miles Davis to The Two Ronnies.

But Michel Legrand is that rarity: Oscar-winning composer of film scores, jazzer who was down with all the cool cats and, for those of us of a certain age, ivory-tinkler by appointment to Messrs Barker and Corbett in the 1970s.

Just days short of his 77th birthday, Legrand has been around long enough to be a child prodigy at the Paris Conservatoire, to have picked the brains of Igor Stravinsky, and worked with everyone from Maurice Chevalier to Bjork.

The range of his work was evident from this show. At the heart of it, and closest to Legrand’s own heart you suspect, is the ferociously well-drilled bebop which best allowed his 15-piece brassy orchestra to shine.

Endearing creakiness

Legrand sang, with an endearing creakiness, chatted and scatted with Gallic charm, played piano with dizzying fluidity, and leapt up to conduct his ensemble - plainly in charge of every last note yet with no trace of the ego to which bandleaders are prone and to which someone with three Oscars and five Grammys may feel entitled.

 One tune he introduced as from a film, Pieces Of Dreams, which was “a complete flop”, though Legrand’s theme, arranged as a showcase for four trumpets was clearly the best thing about the movie. Another piece, Dingo Lament, written for his friend Miles Davis, was a beautifully controlled exercise in muted trumpet played by Martin Shaw.

Harpist Catherine Michel gave us a medley from Legrand’s soundtrack to a rather more successful movie, Yentl. And in the second half, the special guest was Alison Moyet, adding her chocolatey contralto to such chestnuts as What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?, The Summer Knows and I Will Say Goodbye, most featuring extended jazzy interludes.

The expected climax was perhaps Legrand’s most famous song, The Windmills Of Your Mind, from the movie The Thomas Crown Affair.

He and Moyet started by singing alternate lines, but ended up swapping individual syllables.

Then after she left the stage, Legrand went off on a great florid improvisational journey full of harmonic intrigue and neo-classical voyages up and down the keyboard.

It was the vivid highlight of the evening.

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