Louis Vola

Louis Vola (* 6. July 1902 in La Seyne-sur-Mer ; † 15. August 1990 in Paris ) was a French jazz - bassist , accordionist and bandleader who in Quintette du Hot Club de France played.

Live and act

Vola was born on the Riviera as the son of a shoemaker from Italy; he first played on his father's accordion and then learned other instruments. Visits to the Bal Musettes sparked his enthusiasm for music and the desire to become a professional musician after briefly attempting to become a baker. Vola then learned the double bass and played dance music.

As early as the spring of 1931, Vola played with an orchestra in the Lido of Toulon , to which Django Reinhardt and Roger Chaput belonged. In June 1931, recordings of Vola's group ( Carinosa ) were made in the Grand Theater of Toulon , on which Django Reinhardt could be heard as a soloist. Volas then played the orchestra in Cannes , and from December 1931 on, appeared in the Boîte à Matelots in Paris . Vola played in 1932 with his band Vola et ses gars in the Paris Club Embassy , in 1933 in the Casino de Paris . In 1932 he worked with Reinhardt on the score for Henri Diamant-Berger's film Clair de lune with From 1933 to 1937 he directed an orchestra, which from 1934 included Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli and Alix Combelle . In this large-format band, Reinhardt and Grappelli began to form a band in the band with Chaput and Vola during appearances at the dance tea in the Parisian Hotel Claridge .

In 1934, Vola was a founding member of the Quintette du Hot Club de France . This makes him one of “the undisputed most important figures on the French jazz scene” for Reinhardt and, together with Emil Savitry, his early mentor (even before Charles Delaunay took over this task). Vola played regularly with the Quintette du Hot Club de France until 1938 . After that, Vola no longer officially recorded with Django Reinhardt, but played with him at a concert in Brussels.

In 1934/35 the Vola Orchestra also appeared with Django Reinhardt, Ales Rénard, Roger Chaput and Jacquemont Brown, in 1936 at a concert by the Hot Club de France and the Jazz Hot magazine, and in 1938 at the Olympia in Paris . Until 1938 he worked as a bass player on recordings by Django Reinhardt, until he was replaced by Emmanuel Soudieux .

In the 1930s, Vola also played with Jean Sablon , Michel Warlop , Willie Lewis , Ray Ventura , Duke Ellington and accompanied the singers Charles Trenet , Jacques Brel , Georges Brassens and Yves Montand as a session musician . From 1938 he played in Ray Ventura's orchestra, where he was better paid, and took part in his film Tourbillon de Paris (1939). As an accompanying musician, Louis Vola also played from 1938 on recordings by Philippe Brun and Alix Combelle.

After the occupation of France, he and other members of the Ventura Orchestra fled to South America, where he lived for the next eight years. In Buenos Aires in April 1944 he had the opportunity to record under his own name ( Louis Vola Del Quinteto Del Hot Club De Francia ). After his return to Paris, he was forgotten in view of the musical changes. After the failed attempt to run a restaurant in Nice , Vola had an engagement at Club Shéhérazade , where he performed the remaining years of his music career as a bassist as well as a pianist and drummer. At the end of the 1950s, he retired to Cachan , where he died in August 1990 after performing again in 1978 with Svend Asmussen as well as Boulou and Elios Ferré at the Django Reinhardt festival in Samois-sur-Seine .

Louis Vola is remembered primarily as the discoverer and early supporter of Django Reinhardt; later he is said to have acted as a "catalyst" between Reinhardt and Grappelli. He made the most of his musical possibilities and was considered a competent session musician who recorded with many lesser known musicians.

Discographic notes

• Django Reinhardt: Swing from Paris (ASV, 1935–1939)

literature

• Bielefeld catalog 1988 & 2002
• Alexander Schmitz: & Peter Maier: Django Reinhardt . Oreos 1988
• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings . 8th edition. Penguin, London 2006, ISBN 0-14-102327-9 .

Web links

• Biography at papabecker.com
• Biography at musiciensjazzparis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Dregni, Alain Antonietto, Anne Legrand Django Reinhardt and the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz Denver 2006, p. 198
2. ↑ Michael Dregni u. a. Django Reinhardt and the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz p. 46
3. ↑ Alexander Schmitz: & Peter Maier: Django Reinhardt 2006, p. 75
4. ↑ Michel Dregni Gypsy Jazz Oxford 2008, p. 67
5. ↑ Paul Vernon Chester: Django's Bassists ( Memento of the original of February 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.