Most people know Michel Legrand for his popular movie scores (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Thomas Crown Affair, Summer of '42) and the hit songs from them (I Will Wait for You, The Windmills of Your Mind, Theme from Summer of '42). Yet his first love is jazz and he began his recording career with a series of best-selling instrumental albums for Columbia.
The success of I Love Paris in 1954 spawned a dozen or more LPs in a similar vein -- Holiday in Rome, Castles in Spain, Legrand in Rio, etc. Legrand apparently did not benefit financially from the popularity of the albums. He was paid a flat session fee for the recording sessions that took place in his native France.
I Love Movies came along in 1958. The movie themes therein were mostly well known, but there were several from French movies that may not have been familiar to North Americans.
The standard Cheek to Cheek was written by Irving Berlin for the 1935 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Top Hat. Astaire's recording of the song with Leo Reisman's orchestra was deemed to be the top hit of the year. Here's Legrand's version.
Cheek to Cheek
I can't begin to sort out the bewildering array of download versions of Legrand's Columbia recordings. Most, if not all, are the usual European out-of-copyright releases that should be approached with caution. As far as I can determine the tracks from I Love Movies are not available in a digital format.
On CD you should look for Legrand Piano: I Love Paris released by Sony in 1990 and available for under $5 on Amazon. There's also a release from Polygram in Europe of what is undoubtedly Legrand's finest Columbia recording, Legrand Jazz, with the participation of the likes of Miles Davis, Ben Webster and Hank Jones. There are plenty of cheap copies on Amazon and elsewhere. Make sure you get the Polygram release as there are also out-of-copyright versions floating around.
Here's something else from I Love Movies.
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