Скачать или смотреть "Album Musical 1900 à la mode de 1940"... Raymond Legrand & son Orchestre (1940)

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Continuing the little tour of French orchestras and singers, this video features another - if lesser known - recording by the great Raymond Legrand orchestra. The orchestra plays the "Album Musical 1900" featuring popular songs from the early 1900s... Easily recognizable are : "La petite Tonkinoise" - most famous in the later version by Josephine Baker, "Frou-Frou" and "Fascination". Fermo Dante Marchetti's "Fascination" became especially popular in the early 1940s... The song became a big hit in an upadated version by French singer Léo Marjane and was also recorded by big bands in an uptempo version - one of my favourites being the Stan Brenders version...

The video features some old postcards from Paris before the First World War as well as the magazine "Paris qui chante". I found a few of them on the flea market a few years back and they are in remarkable condition for magazines that were published over 100 years ago. "Paris qui chante" (Lit "Paris sings") was dedicated to the stars of the French music hall and Café Concert... Most of them are long forgotten yet some names have entered music history such as : Mayol, Dranem, Yvette Guilbert and Mistinguett. I ws especially thrilled to see pictures of Mistinguett (at that time still Mistinguette) in an issue from 1903. She was then around 28 years old and dancing the "American Cake Walk"...

The Raymond Legrand orchestra was France's leading big band in the late 1930s and certainly during the wartime years when Legrand (1908- 74) made numerous recordings for Columbia - his most famous being "Mademoiselle Swing" and "Oui!" (Si tu me dis oui!). He also accompanied many popular singers such as Léo Marjane, Maurice Chevalier, Irène de Trébert and many others. He is the father of the composer Michel Legrand (Raymond Legrand married four times - which resulted in quite a lot of offspring as well as a child out of wedlock with the singer Irène de Trébert).

About the record :

Columbia

DF 2783,/ mx. CL 7356/7357

Paris,
November 1940

Record in excellent condition

This record was recorded with a Grado 78c cartridge and stylus. The restoration was done as truthfully as possible.