FRANCK POURCEL & HIS ORCHESTRA 1998 EMI REMASTERS ON CD

FRANCK POURCEL & HIS ORCHESTRA 1998 EMI REMASTERS ON CD

FRANCK POURCEL’s 1970 LP ‘Dancing in the Sun’ has been been lovingly restored by EMI (UK) in this rare CD set. Amazingly, this set did not contain any hit tune popularized by the Beatles despite its date of release. The title track evokes memories of a sunny Mediterranean coastal vacation. The girl in the floral sun dress probably brings one down memory lane even more. In keeping with the transition between the 1960s and 1970s, tracks like ‘Yellow River’, Bacharach’s ‘Make it Easy on Yourself’ and Pourcel’s own ‘Babysitter’ salute the groovier side of the change in decades. The mellower, reflective start of the 70s is signaled by ‘Lady D’arbanville’, ‘No Colour Time of the Day’, ‘Wandrin’ Star’, ‘Concerto pour Une Voix’ (Concerto for a Solo Voice), and the Carpenters hit ‘Close to You’. Pourcel does an unbelievably soft romantic version on the latter – take the listener on an evening promenade by a moonlit river and into a quiet candlelight wine bar. What he does is slow down the tempo, a la Rachmaninov, accentuate the note changes in Bacharach’s opening bars with a single tinkling piano/fender Rhodes and fill in the strings only midsection. There’s a fascinating touch of country guitars in ‘Snowbird’ and ‘Comme J’ai Toujours envie Aimer’. This is an album that captures the transition into 70s popular music – instrumentally… The other LP twinned with this release is ‘And Now…Pourcel’; it takes on the Euro-Atlantic pop charts of 1975 and turns in memorable renditions of ‘She’, ‘Emanuelle’, ‘Sugar Baby Love’, ‘One Man Woman’ and ‘Le Premier Pas’. Fresh off the glamour of France’s inauguration of the Concorde supersonic flight, Pourcel works his magic on some familiar favourites such as Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’, better known as ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’, and the Gene Kelly showstopper ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. Pourcel lightens up both stage pieces with some percussion while keeping the warm hum-along harmonies that characterize these musical greats. Interestingly, Pourcel kept out the disco heartbeat from this LP even though disco was breaking upon the music scene then!

POURCEL’s second double CD release features a compilation LP – THIS IS POURCEL - from 1969 featuring his ‘best hits’ from the preceding five years, as well as 1974’s ‘Franck Pourcel Plays the Cole Porter Story’. The track listing is as follows:

Disc One

1. Dancing In The Sun (Un Rayo Del Sol)

2. A Man Without Love

3. Love At First Sight (Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus)

4. Abacachi

5. Summertime

6. Anitra's Dance (Peer Gynt)

7. This Is My Song

8. Un Banc Un Arbre Une Rue

9. If I Were A Rich Man

10. It Must Be Him (Seul Sur Son Etoile)

11. Adelita

12. On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

13. Aranjuez Mon Amour

14. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Disc Two

1. C'est Magnifique

2. I Love Paris

3. I've Got You Under My Skin

4. In The Still Of The Night

5. Easy To Love

6. True Love

7. Begin The Beguine

8. Night And Day

9. Just One Of Those Things

10. Ca C'Est L'Amour

11. So In Love

12. Don't Fence Me In

As most authentic remasters go, the entire LP is reproduced for digital formatting, including overlapping tunes. In the case of THIS IS POURCEL, it is ‘Dancing in the Sun’. This tune leads off the set of 14 tracks and is deliberately harmonized with the LP cover which features a brilliant sunrise set behind the wording. This ‘best of’ LP does not disappoint – it ranges from the semi-Latin, slightly Space Age Pop sound of ‘Dancing in the Sun’ to the serious mournful strokes of ‘Summertime’ to the Italianesque holiday strains of ‘A Man without Love’ [Cuando M’innamoro] and ‘This is my Song’. Both ‘Italians’ come complete with even mandolin sounds amidst the strings! Then there is the mushy romantic transformation of Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Love At First Sight (Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus)’ minus the Jane Birkin sound-alike vocals featured on many instrumental covers of this hit. It evokes Paris in the Spring and the image of lovers strolling down the Champs Elysee. This is picture postcard Paris without being too clichéd.

Franck Pourcel does Cole Porter with a distinct mid-1970s vibe to it. ‘Cest Magnifique’ commences with a  trumpet blast reminiscent of 70s era TV musical shows centred around an artiste e.g. ‘James Last Starparade’ or ‘The Andy Williams Show’. This is also the heady time for funk influences in pop music – signaled by Barry White’s ‘Love’s Theme’ and the ‘Theme from SHAFT’. We hear this in Pourcel’ s hip arrangements for ‘I Love Paris’ and ‘Begin the Beguine’. Pourcel gives a nod to the folk heritage of American pop by going country music style with the banjo on ‘Don’t Fence in’. Finally, we are brought back to Broadway on ‘Just One of those Things’ with its sweeping strings punctuated by massed trumpets.

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