Bolero
- Original Composer:Maurice Ravel
- Year of composition: 1928
- Arrangement: Jaques Loussier trio (1999)
- Instruments: Piano, Double Bass, Drums
- Performers: Jaques Loussier, Pierre Michelot, Christian Garros
The piece starts very lightly, but with all three instruments involved from the beginning.
As to be expected, the piano plays the main melody, whilst the bass and drum set accompany more rhythmically. After the first presentation of the main motif, the piano starts to throw in some improvised parts within the breaks.
Slowly, those improvised insertions start to expand and are used more frequently, nonetheless the piece stays very close to the original for about 3 minutes. As a walking bass section starts, the other instruments make room for the bass to expand, with the piano only suggesting an outline of the melody and the drum set creating a very soft accompaniment.
Gradually, the piano moves more in the centre of attention again and as the piece progresses it slowly becomesharder to recocnise the ground structure of the original Bolero.
After an improvised section, the piano moves back to the original main theme, played in octaves and with a stronger accompaniment, presumably to represent the rising application of instruments within the original piece. After a short bass solo, the main section can be heard again, this time the piano also doubles the bass line. Another repetition can be heard after a short drum solo section.
I was surprised, that Loussier used the whole 16 minutes of the piece for this arrangement. Due to the variety between the main parts and the approach towards the original piece by using power-chords and octaves, the piece stayed interesting throughout.
Air on a G string
- Original Composer: J.S.Bach
- Year of composition: around 1723
- Arrangement: Jaques Loussier trio (1999)
- Instruments: Piano, Double Bass, Drums
- Performers: Jaques Loussier, Pierre Michelot, Christian Garros
The piece starts off with a soft intro- section on all three instruments, all just played very softly. A sequence of descending chords leads towards the first motif known from the original piece. The right hand if the piano plays the main melody whilst the bass keeps up communication in form of a question-answer motif. Over the piece the mood gets slightly darker, more tension chords and rapidly changing time signatures are used before the piece ends on a softly played major chord.
Winter (first movement)
- Original Composer: A. Vivaldi
- Year of composition: 1725
- Arrangement: Jaques Loussier trio (1999)
- Instruments: Piano, Double Bass, Drums
- Performers: Jaques Loussier, Pierre Michelot, Christian Garros
The piece starts softly again with a few tension chords, slowly adding more notes to contribute in the chord structure. In comparison to the original, the beginning section is started really slowly until it partially seems to explode in rapidly played sections by all the instruments.
When the intro section is heard for the second time, it is played slightly slower and an improvised part on a pedal point can be heard. Comparing it to the pieces above, this was the first one, where the drummer played a short section which sounded more like R&B instead of Jazz, with accents on the 1st and 3rd best, which created a welcome change.
Overall, I enjoyed the variety of tensions and tempo changes within this piece.
Toccata and fugue in D-minor
- Original Composer: A. Vivaldi
- Year of composition: between 1704 and 1750s
- Arrangement: Jaques Loussier trio (1999)
- Instruments: Piano, Double Bass, Drums
- Performers: Jaques Loussier, Pierre Michelot, Christian Garros
The beginning of the piece is fairly similar to the original piece. Nonetheless, shortly after the first section the other instruments join in as well, from which point on the piece generally gets mire jazzier, playing with different styles. After a short improvised section, a walking bass line starts, accompanied by a dotted rhythm, creating a “swinging” style. I was amazed how close Loussier stayed to the original piece with this arrangement, mainly only making a few adjustments in articulation and tempo changes.
Hiromi -Beethoven Sonata No. 8
- Original Composer: L.v. Beethoven
- Year of composition: 1798
- Arrangement: The Trio Project
- Instruments: Piano, Double Bass, Drums
- Performers: Hiromi Uehara, Anthony Jackson, Steve Smith
The piece starts in the exact same way as the original, nonetheless, after a few bars, a bass and and drum set enter and create a slow blues. The melody is only played slowly, sometimes in a counter movement with the bass line. To add some variety within my compositions, I will definitely move back to this one as an orientation point, as I really enjoyed the slow relaxed style.
Bluefoxxmusic 