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Showing posts with label '87 LC Bourges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label '87 LC Bourges. Show all posts

11 December 2011

Ray Charles In Symphony Concert In Bourges (1987)

Still from video copy.
Ray Charles' symphony concert at the 11th Bourges festival in April 1987 is best known from the excellent documentary Printemps De Bourges by Serge Ginsbourg. I was also aware of some more reels with footage of the festival, mainly with contemporary news items, that are kept by the INA archive (cf. this post for all).
Today a good friend enabled me to confirm that a TV program mentioned in Jazz On The Screen (a database compiled by David Seeker, now in the Library of Congress), titled Symphonie Ray Charles, directed by Jean-Paul Jaud, "with a symphony orchestra", has survived in a 30-minute version, and indeed can be identified with a (partial) TV taping of Ray's Bourges concert with the National Orchestra d'Ile de France, conducted by Jacques Mercier. The taping appears to be assigned by the festival organization; the credits of the video that I saw mention "Printemps Images" as the production company.
As usual, Ray brought his own rhythm section: Paul Kreibich (drums), Kenny Carr (guitar), and Roger Hines (bass). The four of them performed a red hot version of Lay Around.
The program shows:
  • All I Ever Need Is You
  • If You Go Away
  • (All I Wanna Do Is) Lay Around And Love On You (guitar solo by Kenny Carr)
  • Georgia On My Mind
  • Yesterday
  • Outro
The setlist at the concert was probably longer. From Ginsbourg's film and this news item we know that Ray also performed They Can't Take That Away From Me during the concert.

07 June 2010

Ray Charles At Printemps De Bourges (With Serge Ginsbourg) (1987)

Impressions of the 11th edition of the Printemps de Bourges festival, that was held from 17 to 26 April 1987, were broadcast by TF 1 on 23 July of that year. The 52-minute programme was made by Serge Ginsbourg.
In an interview segment Serge (who seemed a bit stoned) and Ray reflected on their respective ages, on Ray's concert rehearsals, and on their favorite pianos. Serge then showed Ray how people in France shake hands.
In the concert sequence, Ray was accompanied by the National Orchestra d'Ile de France, led by Jacques Mercier.* Apart from the sequences discussed above, you can see them rehearse They Can't Take That Away From Me and Yesterday, and - extra special, never seen or heard before or since - we see and hear Ray whistle a few notes.
Source: Ina, ID CPD01007359. For more impressions of this same festival, see this.

* Ray, as usual, brought his own rhythm section, with Paul Kreibich (drums), Kenny Carr (guitar), and Roger W. Hines (bass).

Other items in the Ina archive:
  • From 22 April 1987 an announcement aired by the France 2 news: "Printemps De Bourges festival", which may be identical to the clip below. Source: Ina, ID CAB87015077 (mother tape CAB02061041).
  • From 25 April 1987 a "Round up of the week: [...] 21/04/87: Ray Charles on stage at the piano." on France 2 news. Source: Ina, ID CAB87015599 (mother tape CAB02061164).
  • From 23 July 1987 a France 2 news item, where "Ray Charles repeats They Can't Take That Away From Me, with the National Orchestra of Paris [...] supervised by Jacques Mercier." Source: Ina, I00006770 (mother tape CPD01007359).
  • The Ina archive also has an enigmatic entry titled Festival Of Antibes: Tribute Has Ray Charles. The occasion  was probably the announcement of Ray Charles' concert at the Jazz À Juan festival, later that year (cf. here and here). In the automated French - English translation of Footage.org the "has" ("a") is probably a mistake for "at" ("à"). However, it was a 24 minute program, extracted from the Printemps de Bourges documentary. It was aired by France 3 on 19 February 1990. Source: ID, MOC9002201055 (mother tape: RBC05007372).  



See this post for a taping of (most of) the concert.