Stephane Grappelli - Compact Jazz

Grappelli plays the old Quintette du Hot Club de France hits, but with forty years of advances in recording technology on his side. I’d be surprised if any song on this record was written after 1950, but hey, isn’t that what Jazz is all about? Being stuck in the past?

I kid. Stephane Grappelli swings hard on this record, and his sidemen (particularly George Shearing on the piano) are able to keep pace with his heavy hand and fluid scalar improvisation. There’s nothing modal or avant-garde here, but neither is it straight-ahead jazz. After all, how many non-French jazz violinists do you know? This is a fine example of European string-jazz; danceable despite minimal percussion, melodic in character, upbeat but not to the extremes of hard bop.

The cover is grey and old-fashioned, bringing to mind the aesthetics of the various classical records I’ve talked about on this blog. That might just be the fact that it’s a West German CD from the 80s. Boring, still admirable. Kind of how I feel about this record.

Compact Jazz by Stephane Grappelli is a good compilation, and I like it.