Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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BOLLING, Claude

(b 10 April 1930, Cannes, France; d 29 December 2020. French jazz pianist, band leader, arranger, composer. He won the Hot Club de France piano tournament aged 15, followed André Hodeir’s jazz orchestration teachings, accompanied Bertha 'Chippie' Hill at the Grande semaine du jazz in 1948, and then was a regular with his trio in the cellars of Paris’ Saint-Germain-des-Prés, accompanying many American jazzmen on tour, among them Rex Stewart, Buck Clayton, Lionel Hampton, Albert Nicholas, Roy Eldridge (album Fireworks) and becoming prominent in French jazz. He made a remarkable impression at a celebrated three-pianists concert with Oscar Peterson and Michel Legrand in Ottawa in 1984 (available on YouTube).

His hero was Duke Ellington (French writer Boris Vian gave him the nickname 'Bollington'). In 1956 producer Frank Ténot proposed that he assemble a French band to record Ellington’s compositions. The next year the band recorded a tribute to Django Reinhardt, then in 1958 backed the dancers of writer Françoise Sagan’s ballet Rendez-Vous Manqué. He led his Big Band for 58 years, playing at the Jazz Brunch of the Hôtel Méridien-Etoile in Paris from 1985 to 200, recording with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, recreating in 1995 with director Jérôme Savary the stage adaptation of Ellington’s A Drum Is a Woman.

In 1955, Vian asked him to write the arrangements for his debut record as a singer-songwriter, Chansons Possibles et Impossibles, the success of which led Bolling into French popular music, writing and playing piano for Sacha Distel, Jacqueline François, Juliette Gréco, Henri Salvador, Charles Trénet and his future great friend Brigitte Bardot, and creating the vocal group Les Parisiennes.

At the same time, he launched a career as a film composer. From 1955 to 2010 he composed the music of some 100 movies for the cinema and 40 for television, among  which, in France, René Clément’s Le Jour et l’Heure, Marcel Camus’ Le Mur de l’Atlantique, Philippe de Broca’s Le Magnifique, Jacques Deray’s Borsalino, Flic Story, Un Papillon sur l'épaule, Trois hommes á abattre, three Lucky Luke cartoons…, and, in the USA and the UK, The Awakening, Willie & Phil - Paul Mazursky’s remake of François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim - To Catch a Spy, Silver Bears, The Bay Boy, California Suite.

He had a fifth career in “cross-over music”, blending jazz and classical, performing and recording his compositions for jazz trio and classical instruments, with classical pianist Jean-Pierre Pommier (Bach to Swing, Sonata for two Pianists and Jazz Piano Trio, early 60s), Jean-Pierre Rampal (Suites for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio N°1, 1973, which stayed on Billboard’s classical ranking for a record 533 weeks, and N°2, 1987), Alexander Lagoya (Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Piano Trio, 1975), Pinchas Zukerman (Suite for Violon and Jazz Piano Trio, 1977), ), Rampal and Lagoya (Picnic Suite for Flute, Guitar and Jazz Piano Trio, 1980), Maurice André (Toot Suite - for Trumpet and Jazz Piano Trio, 1981), the English Chamber Orchestra (Suite for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Piano Trio, 1983), Yo-Yo Ma (Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio, 1984).

Claude Bolling’s entire recorded output under his various hats is available at www.fremeaux.com.