Benny Vasseur

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Bernard "Benny" Vasseur (born March 7, 1926 in Neuville-Saint-Rémy ; † February 6, 2015 in Paris ) was a French jazz trombonist .

Live and act

Vasseur had his first music lessons from his father René Vasseur, an amateur flautist. At the age of ten he first played the piano; on the instrument he received a music award in 1944 and played in a sextet that performed in American military bases in 1945. During this time he was nicknamed Benny . Under the influence of the music V-Discs by Tommy Dorsey and Jack Teagarden , he switched to the trombone. In the post-war period he played in the nearby Cambrai in the orchestra of the local Hot Club ; In 1946 he left the city and attended the Conservatoire Supérieure de Musique de Paris , where he had lessons with Henri Couillaud (1946-48). There he met André Paquinet ; In 1946/47 he played with Pierre Braslavsky and made frequent guest appearances at the Hot Club de Versailles . He also toured with Eddie Bernard , Armand Conrad , Hubert Fol and the Fred Adison Orchestra during this time ; at Club Saint-Germain he played with Jean Claude Fohrenbach and Boris Vian . He played in the orchestras of Claude Abadie , Pierre Atlan , Claude Bolling and Rex Stewart , with whom he toured Scandinavia in 1948.

At the end of the 19040s, Vasseur also played with Eddie Barclay (at Club Bœuf sur le Toît ), Sidney Bechet , Maurice Emo, James Moody (Club Saint-Germain), Aimé Barelli , Hubert Rostaing , and from 19509 also with Bill Coleman , Coleman Hawkins , Charlie Parker , Nat Peck and Bernard Zacharias , Don Byas , Roy Eldridge and others a. From 1951 to 1953 he was again a member of Aimé Barelli's orchestra, with whom he a. a. Django Reinhardt accompanied; afterwards he played in the Orchester Claude Luter . He also played with Albert Nicholas (1953) and Sidney Bechet (1954), Michel Attenoux (1953), Henri Renaud (1953), Dave Pochonet (1953), Clifford Brown (1953), Gigi Gryce , Buck Clayton , Jack Diéval (1954 ), Christian Chevallier (1955) and again with Claude Luter (1955).

In the second half of the 1950s he worked with Michel Legrand , André Popp , Fred Gérard , Jo Moutet, Guy Lafitte , Martial Solal , Sarane Ferret , Lucky Thompson , Bill Harris , Chet Baker , Buck Clayton , Quincy Jones , Big Chief Russell Moore , Frank Rosolino as well as for various chanson singers and film musicians . In the following years he also worked for television stations, such as with André Paquinet for Radio Luxembourg and for Annie Cordy . In 1963 he became a member of the Orchester Symphonique de Paris, where he worked a. a. with stars like Edith Piaf , Sacha Distel , Maurice Chevalier , Johnny Hallyday , Charles Aznavour , Jacques Brel , Liza Minnelli , Frank Sinatra , Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis Jr . From the mid-1970s he worked with Claude Bolling, Stéphane Guérault , Mustache Galepides (1979), Gunther Schuller / Rolf Liebermann , Pierre Sellin , Guy Marchand , Eddy Louiss , and in the 2000s with Alain Bouchet (Marciac, 2001) , Hal Singer (2006), the Louisiana Jazz Band (2008), the Bechet Memory All Stars . Kidney disease forced him to retire from his career.

Under his own name, Vasseur presented an album that he had recorded in March 1956 with Fred Gérard , Fernand Verstraete , Roger Guérin and André Paquinet ( Tendrement Votre , Columbia). Benny Vasseur was influenced by JJ Johnson , Lawrence Brown and Dicky Wells . In the field of jazz he was involved in 155 recording sessions between 1945 and 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Obituary at Jazz Hot
  2. ↑ Tom Lord The Jazz Discography (online, accessed February 12, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Vasseur, Benny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vasseur, Bernard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French jazz trombonist
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuville-Saint-Rémy
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 2015
Place of death Paris