Classical Music

This 2-CD set features an adaptation specially made for children of Victor HUGO’s masterpiece « Les Miserables ». The story is told by Guy Trejan – in French – with the participation of 20 actors and musicians. Hugo’s book illustrates the fight between good and evil. The once bad Jean Valjean became a good man. He is, however, ruthlessly confronted with the police inspector Javert. Recommended for children as from 7 years old.

”Her pure talent caused a huge stir when she appeared in the world of Fado at the age of 19, and for several decades, both at home and abroad, Amália Rodrigues symbolized the quintessence of this urban popular genre whose heart lay in Lisbon. Amália made the reper-toire richer by introducing major new composers and poets who seduced intellectuals, yet she never renounced her origins: she remained devoted to the most traditional Fado styles. This new Fremeaux release gives new life to 38 exemplary titles recorded between 1945 and1957, the decade in which Amália Rodrigues won international acclaim while creating the history of modern Fado.” Teca CALAZANS & Philippe LESAGE

The lushness of the Tropics, scantily-clad bodies, tribal aesthetics and syncopated rhythms… from the famous loincloth worn by Josephine Baker to Elizabeth Taylor’s performance as Cleopatra, Africa has always had a place of choice in the popular imagery of the 20th century. Whether as roots giving unity to separate black identities, the cradle of humanity, or the reflection of original purity, Africa - real, supposed or imaginary - has influenced most of the music, dance-forms and graphic arts of the last hundred years. With detailed comments from Bruno Blum, these splendid titles have been placed in the historic context of the Civil Rights struggle and the independence of the West Indies and the dark continent. Patrick FReMEAUX

This box-set portrays the Fado of the latter half of the twentieth century. A true form of blues with distinct Latin colours, Fado expresses the cultural amotion of Portugal.

For an intimate understanding of a Kota reliquary or a great Fang mask you have to feel the fresh damp of the forest, the dull sounds in the vastness beneath the foliage, the lacy filigree of every different bird species combined with the symphony of animal groups in concert… in turn obeying the commands of variations in temperature, rain and wind. They represent a natural ode to the legitimate syncretism of nature and culture, because we are indeed in Nature. Pierre Huguet’s 1990 field recordings in the heart of the virgin forest constitute a sensorial experience for all those who wish to listen to the Congolese tree canopy of the sculptors of indigenous art. The forest of Man.

Born into a family of famous gypsy musicians in Belgium, Tcha Limberger is a violinist whose sincerity is as attractive as his virtuosity when he wields his bow. Noting that gypsy jazz had an American matrix — threads of New Orleans and Swing — he took a closer interest in the original music of the Hungarian gypsies known as Tziganes who settled in Central Europe. He went to Hungary for a year and a half, an initiatory voyage on which he met with the best musicians, also learning Hungarian. In 2009 he founded the Gypsy Budapest Orchestra with support from Dave Kelbie, the great British producer of Evan Christopher, Fapy Lafertin etc. Today, Limberger’s violin brilliantly reincarnates Magyar nota, the great popular repertoire of Hungary (between folk and classical music) that had gone into decline. Tcha Limberger is internationally recognized: he triumphed at the 2015 opening of World Music Expo (Womex), and received France Musique’s World Award at Babel Med the same year. This recording have been nominated in the Songlines Music Awards 2016. Augustin BONDOUX & Patrick FReMEAUX

2-CD set contains 38 comic songs by Mary Buldoc, whose works are now studied in universities. Indeed, historians prefer her version of everyday life to that described in the press of the period. However, Mary was simply describing what she saw around her, without premise and unaffected by her reputation.

2-CD set with 38 tracks contains the work of French vocalist Tino Rossi, who sang songs of love. Includes the tracks "Romance", "Pamelita", "Partir un jour", "C'est Vous", "Maria", "Ave Maria" and many others. Includes a 32 page booklet with both French and English notes.

These recordings collected in situ by Francois Jouffa in 2015, allow us to listen to the compelling wealth of the traditional music of Southern India. This classical music from the lower part of the Indian subcontinent, called carnatic music, has age-old bases. This release contains Kathakali songs ( from the Sanskrit Theater) and ragas performed by masters of the veena (ancient Indian lute with plucked strings), temple music and groups of percussion. It is a seizing musical overview, a preeminent testimony of the Indian immaterial heritage.

(2-CD set) "A drawing by Jean Cocteau lies behind the image which springs to mind whenever I think of Charles Trenet - I see him with big wings, flying across the sky..." Gilbert BeCAUD. Includes a 40 page booklet with both French and English notes.

«A master-piece still lives on a century later. People often tell me than several of my songs will still be going in a hundred years time. I hope so but can hardly believe it. And among my songs which will supposedly live on, La Mer is always referred to. I think if I had to choose one, it would be L’Ame des Poetes! »

French songs for children.

In this feminine follow-up to our previous album, Latin Crooners, the Latin diva spews out her venom and resentment of the male race. Here, we can enjoy some gems from the forties and fifties, a period craving for both tenderness and spice.

Tatavla was the early name of a popular, highly cosmopolitan Greek enclave in Istanbul. Greek immigrants leaving Turkey took this music with them, and it evolved in exile to become the popular rebetiko genre. After the album Black Night Please Fall Over the World, which focused on traditional Hungarian music, violin virtuoso Tcha Limberger continued his search for authenticity in music, exploring the roots of forgotten popular genres as he does here, with such wonderful accompanists as the Greek accordionist Dimos Vougioukas and guitarist Benjamin Clement. Produced to the familiar high standards of U.K. independent label Lejazzetal, here the trio Tatavla offers music of infinite richness, filled with festive melodies and marked by hybrid accents from the East.

Located within the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, the Golden Triangle is a remote region of Southeast Asia at the crossroads of Chinese and Indian influences. On the outskirts of steep mountain passes and of its foothills covered with luxuriant jungles live peoples of Chinese origin isolated from the rest of the world that Francois Jouffa recorded in an area known for its dangerousness, in the late 1970s, on the Cold War and traffic drugs background. This sound recording, here presented on a double CD, is a rare audio testimony which lists the different types of music, the songs and the music instruments of the Meo, the Lisu, the Shan, the Lahu Nyi, the Yao, the Akha and the Karen Sgaw peoples, the traditions and customs of which are very ancient. Patrick FReMEAUX

An exceptional document: Trenet’s very first sizeable one-man show held at the TheAtre de l’Etoile in 1947, previously believed to have disappeared into thin air. It has at long last been retrieved and is now released in its entirety.

The famed critic Leonard Feather wrote, "Oscar Alem has more swing than any other guitarist on the continent" and, "His tone, phrasing, swing, and attack are so grand that if anyone ever mentions Django Reinhardt to me again, I shall stare coldly." Born in 1909, the famed Argentinean guitarist played with the best jazz musicians of the 20s and 30s, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Django. He was hired by Josephine Baker to lead her band, the Baker Boys at the Cafe de Paris. After the war began, Alem returned to Argentina, where he lived, taught and performed until his death at age 71. The two albums here date from 1965 and 1975, and are among his last recordings.

Dressed in a waxed satin or nacred sheath clinging to her ephebic hips, revealing the shoulders of an Olympic swimmer and her back which aroused men and women alike, Solidor's ambiguity prevailed. Not to mention her face, voice and repertory.

(2-CD set) After the arrival of Charles Trenet, the French song was never to be the same again. Charles hid his worries behind a mask of carefree youth and enjoyed jingling words and swinging rhymes. In 1938, his identity as the “singing fool” became permanent... Includes a 32 page booklet with both French and English notes.

Serge Gainsbourg remains one of the most influential artists of the 20th century to this day. In this second volume, Olivier Julien and Frederic Regent have gathered all of Gainsbourg’s works from the period 1960-1962, a little-known period when French song was in transition, in a context where rock ’n’ roll was emerging at the same time as the beginnings of the tidal wave in French pop they called “Ye-Ye”. This 3CD set contains titles sung by not only Gainsbourg himself, but great stars of the early Sixties, including Juliette Greco, Philippe Clay, Catherine Sauvage and Petula Clark. Patrick FReMEAUX

Following on the success of Fremeaux's first release of the Red Army Choir's historic recordings, the label now offers a second volume devoted to great traditional Soviet melodies. The repertoire on the disc includes the National Anthem of the USSR.

Since his arrival in Paris 15 years ago, and assisted by Patrick Tandin Productions, Raul Barboza gained international repute. Through records, DVDs and concerts on the world’s most prestigious stages, Barbaoza globally legitimized his Indian-inspired accordion and became the major ambassador of Chamame, the expression of a natural life-style using musical rhythms and improvisation. D. Leblond, B. Goldenstein et P. Fremeaux

“The first French singer-songwriter you could call genuinely inspired by jazz was this boy named Charles Trenet [...] the new heartbeat, the extraordinary joie de vivre coming from the songs that this rumpled kid chucked out by the dozen, were born of the conjunction between a remarkable poetic gift and the vitality of jazz, assimilated fully by an exquisite sensibility.” Boris VIAN (En avant la Zizique)

“Choc ‘n soul” – The title composed by Manu Dibango in 1978 is a veritable manifesto of the good word preached by Manu in his orchestral elucubrations, demonstrating the shock of the fusion between original Africa and musicgenres of Afro-America – soul, jazz, disco – which came between Manu Dibango’s success with his “Soul Makossa”, his journey to Kingston, and his Parisian recordings at the end of the Eighties. Here Manu Dibango proposes a return to 12 of his best titles released between 1978 and 1989. Soul and shock indeed." Benjamin Goldenstein & Patrick Fremeaux