Chanson und Jazz mit Mathilde Vendramin

In the organizer's words:

CHANSON AND JAZZ WITH MATHILDE VENDRAMIN

Mathilde Vendrami - vocals
Arseny Rykov - piano
Rodolfo Paccapelo - bass
Greg Smith - drums

The French singer and jazz cellist Mathilde Vendramin, together with a great trio, introduces us to partly unknown French female singers and composers of the 1950s and 1960s, who were introduced to us by the television presenters
Mireille Hartuch and Denise Glaser. Both presented their own programs in the 1950s and 1960s, in which the French stars of tomorrow were introduced. They had a major influence on the careers of musicians in all genres. Mireille Hartuch was a musician herself. She studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1920s and gave early performances at the Odéon and the Bouffes-Parisiennes. Together with her husband Jean Nohain, she composed over 600 chansons. Before the start of the Second World War, she went to the USA, where she appeared in front of the camera with Douglas Fairbanks junior and Buster Keaton in Hollywood. In 1937, she married the writer Emmanuel Berl, with whom she had to hide (she was Jewish) from the German occupying forces in the mountains of southern France. After the end of the war, she returned to Paris and associated with Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus and André Malraux. Her friend, the film director Sacha Guitry, suggested that she found the "Petit Conservatoire de la Chanson", which opened in 1955 and which she later hosted as a television program of the same name. Singers such as Françoise Hardy, Frida Boccara, France Gall, Colette Magny and others performed at the "Petit Conservatoire".
Frida Boccara was presented by Mireille Hartuch and trained at the Petit Conservatoire de la Chanson. She celebrated her first successes in 1960 at the Rose d'Or Festival in Antibes. In 1969, she represented France at the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson (Eurovision Song Contest) with the song Un jour, un enfant, a composition by Émile Stern, and won on equal points with three other singers. Other international successes were Les Moulins de mon cœur (by Michel Legrand - an English-language version, The Windmills of my Mind, made Dustie Springfield famous) and Cent mille chansons (composer Michel Magne). Michel Legrand was one of France's most important jazz pianists and composers, beginning his career in the 1950s and composing the soundtracks for many well-known films. Among other things, he also composed pieces for Frida Boccara, who received two gold records and a platinum record for her greatest sales successes. In addition to France, she was particularly popular in Spain; she also recorded songs in German, English, Italian and Russian. Her active period as a popular singer with annual record releases was between 1960 and 1983.

Françoise Hardy owed her career to Mireille Hartuch, among others, who introduced her on her show (and who trained her). Françoise Hardy was also featured in the program "Discorama" with Denise Glaser.
In her program "Discorama", Denise Glaser helped Serge Gainsbourg, among others, to become more popular, as she interviewed him several times on her show. Unfortunately, Gainsbourg mumbles so much into the camera that hardly a word of what he says can be understood. Denise Glaser also presented important French musicians of the time, but not only their songs, but also let them have their say in interviews. Among others, she conducted longer interviews with Marie Laforêt and Sylvie Vartan, who was considered the top star of the so-called Yéyé girls (French teen pop movement of the 1960s) together with Françoise Hardy and Sheila.