Martial Solal

Pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader Martial Solal is one of France's most accomplished jazz musicians, whose career has spanned seven decades. Born in Algiers on August 23, 1927, he studied piano from the age of six and became a professional musician in 1945. In 1950, he moved to Paris, where he found work in the orchestras of Benny Bennet and Aimé Barelli, before embarking on his own career. He recorded with a trio on the Swing label, accompanied Django Reinhardt, Astor Piazzolla, Kenny Clarke, Lucky Thompson and Sidney Bechet, and performed at the Club Saint-Germain, before taking up a residency at the Blue Note in Paris. He recorded with a large orchestra in 1956 and formed a quartet for which he created a Suite in D flat (1958), when director Jean-Pierre Melville asked him to compose his first film score, Deux hommes dans Manhattan. In 1960, his themes for Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle earned him notoriety and a guaranteed income. He followed this up with Jean Cocteau's Le Testament d'Orphée, Melville's Léon Morin, prêtre, Jean Becker's Échappement libre and Orson Welles' Le Procès. Martial Solal established his reputation in the United States, from the 1963 Newport Festival to West Coast clubs. Trio and orchestra formations followed one another throughout the decade, as did the ambitious albums Électrode: Martial Solal Joue Michel Magne (1966) and Sans Tambour Ni Trompette (1970). A born improviser, he made brilliant solo recordings in between ongoing collaborations with Lee Konitz, Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Stéphane Grappelli. He also ventured unashamedly into jazz and contemporary music scores such as Concerto pour trio de jazz et orchestre (1981), Fantaisie pour deux orchestres (1984), Nuit Étoilée (1988) and Échanges (1989). In the 1980s and 1990s, he returned to big band formations such as Dodecaband and Newdecaband, and hosted a weekly radio show on France Musique. He also made regular visits to the United States, reuniting with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian for the album Just Friends (1997), playing at the Village Vanguard in 2001 and 2007, and touring. Untiring, the pianist continues to perform and record: My One and Only Love (2018) and Coming Yesterday: Live at Salle Gaveau 2019 - his last solo concert, released in 2021. His autobiography, Mon siècle de jazz, was published in 2024. Martial Solal died on December 12, 2024 at the age of 97.