The youth of today is very clever with their media, cell phones, iPods, computers and games. Most know how to enter names and telephone numbers in the address books of their cell phones, send SMS messages. No problem. It is communication by means of data reduction in every sense. Many do not know how to really write.
On BBC Breakfast Television a lady came to tell about an educational program in which authors are visiting schools and talk to pupils and lecture about how to write, how to tell a story, how to use a writing style in order to bring suspense into a story. These authors also teach them how to write a thesis. The problem is that if you do not know how to tell a story, how to put your research into a thesis, you are unable to discuss an issue, to use arguments, which is the reason why so many simple conflicts do end so tragically.

Several years ago a veteran jazz musician was asked to form a jazz orchestra, you know, saxes, trombones, reeds, bass, drums, a piano. He did choose his saxophone players, trumpeters, drummer, trombonists, bass player and pianist with great care, looking at their professionalism. The aim was to perform the music of Duke Ellington. Some of them were still studying, and others were already working as a professional. Yet he was surprised that many of these young musicians were hardly able to play that style of music with flair, soul, swing, and with all the nuances necessary. That was then. I must admit that when listening to the newest songs of individual young singers and musicians, a new sensitivity and artistry can be heard in the record shops today.

I have lived for several years in Paris, a beautiful city for visiting, but if you live there you develop a different relationship. You start to like the city and its inhabitants, you adept to their way of communicating which may seem cold and rude at times, especially to the tourists, but is generally fast and efficient. Just after my arrival I had to report to the Préfecture de police with my passport, two small ID pictures, and some sort of declaration on what address I lived and who was my employer. In no time I had my Carte d'identité. Now I was a Parisian, so it felt, with all other Parisians. But new as I was to this metropolitan city, I walked and walked to discover the plan of Paris, the quartiers, the neighborhoods, and all of that, from Montparnasse to Montmartre, from Place d'Italie to Port Clignancourt and beyond, from Neuilly to Vincennes, to Porte Dauphine were I worked.

On the Sunny Side of the Street
Paris... the name evokes vivid visual memories, smells and sounds for everybody. The smelling metro, hot and cold, thundering through the city's abdomen, or clicking when riding on rubber wheels, speeding like a "lettre pneumatique" from one end of town to another. One level down the stations of the RER smelling like a public toilet. When I lived in Paris they were building the first line of the Reseau Expresse Régional.

When going out at night in the Quartier Latin it was imperative not to miss the last metro to Etoile. From there it was not too far to rue de la Pompe, and just a short distance to Rue des Acacias where I later lived in a studio. And it also happened that at a very late time a bus driver would pick you up when he had to return his bus to the garage. So you did not have to walk the last mile. Most busses were of the old fashioned, rectangular type with an open balcony at the rear. That made traveling a delight, especially in summer.
Saint Germain often meant a "hamburger a cheval" - a hamburger with a fried egg on top - in L'épicerie, rue des Saints-Pêres, or was it Rue Saint-Benoit? The joint was always packed to the brim with students and travelers, but it seemed that there were always a few unoccupied seats; you and your friends were always invited to join one of the small groups sitting elbow to elbow at the little round tables.

There were the many cinémas, about 256 at the time advertised in Pariscope. Especially the one on Avenue MacMahon, and "le cinématèque" in le Palais de Chaillot, Place du Trocadéro, there was Cinérama Wagram and its Russian pendant Kinopanorama on avenue de la Motte Piquet. Studio Opéra featured the cartoons of Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other funny characters. On the Champs Elysees we saw "West Side Story" in the original version but had to wait for years to see "Porgy and Bess" which had been produced much earlier. The movie theater (which had bought the rights for Sam Spiegel's movie) continued showing West Side Story with great success. There was no hall for Sidney Poitiers and Dorothy Dandridge performing in the filming of Gershwin's masterpiece.
In every epoch Paris is filled with famous and not so famous stars, musicians, painters, designers.
Singer/actress Mae Mercer had rented the small studio above mine in Rue de la Pompe. She was busy to further her career which had more or less begun with her appearance in "La glaive et la balance", the movie with Anthony Perkins and Jean-Claude Brialy. Before going to the night club were she performed, she always broke an "empoule buvable" with vitamin C to boost her stamina.

I fully understood Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem "Prologue" from 1955 and the verses "I want to ride through Paris in the morning, hanging on to a bus like a boy." I have to admit, for Yevtushenko it was a dream flowering, but imprisoned by the Soviet system. For me it was reality.

Now that I come to think of it, music has always played an important role in my life. Not only classical. Important was jazz music, maybe unintentionally, maybe it became significant more or less naturally evolving from big band music I listened to when I was a kid, and the exploration of contemporary and less contemporary styles. And Paris had always a lot to offer.

When Ella Fitzgerald came to sing in the Théatre des Champs Elyssées, or Duke Ellington and His Orchestra came to town, we would visit these concerts and enjoy Ray Nance's violin, Cat Anderson, Cootie Williams' trumpet, Johnny Hodges and Russell Procope on alto, Paul Gonsalves, Sam Woodyard on drums, and the Duke overviewing the band from the immense, long concert grand piano. And there would always be an after concert gathering in some bar or jazz club.

My most loved jazz venue was The Living Room, Rue du Colisée, close to the Champs-Elysées, in the 8th arrondissement. On most Saturday nights Paula and I visited the bar. Two Afro-American pianists were playing: Art Simmons and Aaron Bridgers.
Art Simmons was assisted by a drummer and a bass player - I had forgotten their names but found them in a publication: Gilbert Rovère, Stuart Da Silva, and later Luigi Trussardi and Charles Bellonzi, and also René Nan and Michel Gaudry. But I do not recall them as I always looked at how Art would play, often sitting next to him watching his hands touching the keyboard. He let me. I never thought of it that maybe he would not have liked it. Or my observing his art could have made him play more intensely, starting very calmly, displaying the melody or the phrase, repeat it with a few variations, and than gradually building up and exploring ever more complex clusters of harmonies while completely getting carried away, though he remained always in control. Something like Oscar Peterson.

This way of Simmons' playing has never been really captured on tape. The records that exist of this fine pianist are a mere shadow of the real thing. The old recordings issued on the Don Byas CDs are interesting. The Mercury record with boogie woogies is interesting. The 45 rpm disc with Georges Jouvin is a far cry from the ecstasy displayed in The Living Room. Other records that exist of Art Simmons, notably Art Simmons and his Orchestra on Ducretet Thomson, are difficult to find.

Aaron played also very well, inspired by Art Tatum. Aaron had developed his own luxurious sound coming from his big hands, grasping the large chords, striding and breaking. Aaron knew that I liked his playing. But he always knew that I preferred Art's expressionist's explorations. Aaron Bridgers was born on January 10, 1918 and died on November 3, 2003.
The piano these fine jazz pianists played on was a marvelously sounding Grotrian Steinweg. A grand piano with a wonderful sonority in the lower register, a beautiful mid section and not overbright, yet well defined and controled highs. A piano to fall in love with. I said to myself that if I ever would be wealthy, that this would be the piano I was going to buy. My friend Irene and I went to play in the studios of Salle Playel. But our favorite place was Piano Hamm. Was it rue de Rennes?

I attended courses given by the Alliance française. One evening the administrator entered the classroom and talked in a soft voice to our teacher who looked all of a sudden very shocked. When the adminstrator had left, the teacher told us that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. That was on Friday, November 22, 1963.

With my friend and colleague Paula, I spent several Sunday afternoons at Marpessa Dawn's place in "le banlieu". Marpessa of course had become very famous by playing in "Orfeu negro" and she performed on stage, night after night, in "Chérie noire".

Paula helped Indonesian friends by sewing curtains and napkins of their newly opened small Indonesian restaurant. Sometimes we had a meal there to contribute to the cash register which was practically always empty. It was no competition to the only big Indonesian restaurant "Bali".

Coming home from a night out we would play music of Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbara, Yves Montand, Guy Bedos. Most of my records I bought at "Lido musique" were Lilly Christova (originally from Bulgaria) worked until closing time at midnight. After that we often had a coffee in a bar in a side street of the Champs Elyssées until three or four in the morning. And then she would recite Tatjana's letter from Yevgeny Onegin. Lido musique would order any record from the US. Art Blakey on Blue Note, Duke Ellington on Columbia 6-eye, David Fathead Newman on Riverside, Shelly Manne on Contemporary.

In winter we swam in the pool in Rue de Tilsit before going to work. We went sunbathing at Piscine Déligny in summer where everybody was showing off. Stars and celebrities. Especially if you had a well shaped physique as Serge Nubret did.

Many a Sunday evening began with a meal in Pub Renault on Champs Elysées, the showroom annex restaurant: Salade aux crevettes, a Tuborg beer and a St. James Blues for dessert, the delicious icecream on cake soaked in rum.

We visited concerts of the Colonne Orchestra with George Sebastian conducting and in the "Theatre des Champs Elyssees" we saw and heard "L'orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris". André Cluytens conducted Ravel's Boléro with just lifting one finger - only near the end his movements became wild and energizing. There I heard for the first time Kyrill Kondrashin in a Liszt program. In 1965 that was.

There was La Batucada, the Brazilian club where we danced the batucade (of course) and other exotic danses. With Patrick, a friend, I often visited "La payotte" and "Le crocodile", the jazz clubs where they played records. In "Le crocodile" it was the extraordinary record changer TD-224 made by Thorens which carefully changed from Jackie McLean to John Coltrane, from Thelonious Monk, via Art Blakey and Dexter Gordon to Bud Powell. On Sundays the fun of live jazz presented itself in "La cigale" in Montmartre.

Art Simmons was born in 1926, enlisted in the US Army, and played in Army Bands in various European countries when World War Two had ended. When he came to France he started studying at the Conservatory (Conservatoire national de musique) and would play in bars and clubs to support his stay and studies. Paris has a long jazz history and aleays had an attraction for foreign talents. Big names are linked to the city of lights: Django Reinhardt, Sidney Bechet, Don Byas, Bud Powell, to name a few.
When Art Simmons had settled he played in the Ringside, renamed Blue Note, in the Mars Club, and from 1963 till 1969 in The Living Room. He was the pianist in these three movies listed on the IMDb website: Deux hommes dans Manhattan (1959; Melville), Trois chambres à Manhattan (1965; Marcel Carné), and Borsalino (1970; Jacques Deray). There is no entry in Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz.

The Living Room was the place to be. It happened that Memphis Slim unexpectedly entered, sat behind the Grotrian Steinway and started to sing the blues and played a few boogie woogies too. Or Claude Nougaro visited and sang and played Le jazz et la java. Pianist Martial Solal played in his modernistic style. Also composer-pianist-orchestra leader Michel Legrand sometimes dropped by. All just for fun. They needed to meet there colleagues. Or I found myself talking at the bar with sympathetic and friendly Sidney Poitiers who also was a listener. And there was Margie, the singer. She sang "Just squeeze me, but please don't tease me", and of course her song "Margie", while handsome bartender Gilles was serving drinks.

A French friend recently said that I had lived in a far more interersting Paris than the Paris of today. I of course disagree but I know what he means, even though I did not witness - at least not consciously - so many other jazz greats who were performing in those days: René Urtreger, Pierre Michelot, Daniel Humair, Stéphane Grapelli, Jean-Luc Ponty, Eddy Louiss, Phil Woods, André Persiani, Guy Lafitte, Claude Bolling, etc.
The atmosphere made me a fond collector of the fabulous Black and Blue records of so many greats: Don Byas, Slam Stewart, Major Holley, Cat Anderson, Guy Lafitte, Jacques Dufivier, Cliff Smalls, Budy Tate, Cozy Cole, Ellen Humes, J.C. Heard, Gérard Badini, Oliver Jackson, Hank Jones, etc.

My first encounter with the music of Duke Ellington was when I bought HiFi Ellington Uptown, the Columbia recording released in Europe by Philips: A Tone-parallel to Harlem, The Mooche, Take the A-Train (with Betty Roché) and Perdido. High caliber symphonic jazz. One day when Duke Ellington and his Orchestra were in town again, one of my black friends, Gene was his name, called me and invited me to go to the Ritz to see Duke Ellington in person. When we arrived there, Ellington was in a conference and did not have time for us. Well, said Gene, we go see Billy Strayhorn whom he knew well.

Billy Strayhorn was also a resident of The Ritz. He sat in his blue-gray, silken morning coat behind an antique, sculptured French desk, eating a fruit cocktail, good to start the day with after a demanding concert of the night before. It was about 2 in the afternoon.

I was introduced and practically immediately tested to see if I was of the right caliber, if I had feeling for jazz music. This happened when in the conversation the expression "hell no..." was used. Billy Strayhorn, the composer of Take the 'A' train, the tune of Ellington's band, said to me: "Say hhhellll-nooooohh". He said it as two words with equal emphasis. I did my best saying "hhellnoooh". I found that I succeeded quite well. But Mr. Strayhorn, who is also the composer of Lush Life and Sweet and Pungeant, was not content with my effort at all and wanted me to say it with more feeling, with more music. He told me to listen carefully and said: "hhhhhhellll-nooooohhhhhh". Again I repeated the words and gave the sound a sort of turn in the end, something like a muted trumpet. Well, after the third or fourth time, he decided that I had passed the test and had succeeded, but... of course only just.

That was the game he played. In 1965 that was. I did not know that he had already been diagnosed with cancer in 1964 and that he would die two years after this for me memorable encounter.

• 25 Years CD
• SACD: Upsampling & Noiseshaping
• Your Desert Island Discs
• Garrard 4 & 5 HF
• The Sound of Tubes and Transistors
• The Universal Stabilizing Ring - URSR
• URSR: Review in HiFi World
• URSR: Picture Gallery
• URSR: Positive Feedback Online Award
• URSR: Review in PFO, Issue 20.
• Elisabeth Lugt Soprano/Sopraan
• Marie-Claire Alain Notre Dame de l'Orgue
• Active Loudspeake System
• Optimizing Phono Cartridge Performance
• Gold for Bernard Haitink
• Violinist/Violist Paul Godwin
• Rabco SL-8E Vintage Tangential Tonearm
• Wilma Cozart Fine: Mercury Living Presence
• Mercury Recordings on the Fontana Label
• Desert Island Discs
• DIY: Building a Tone Arm
• The Bullet Plug
• Decca London Ribbon HF Horn Loudspeaker
• The Joy of Well Positioned Speakers
• Vintage Equipment
• Phono Cartridges: Ortofon, Decca, Tannoy
• Lp Record Cleaning + DIY Cleaning Formula
• Turntable + Cartridge Adjustment
• DIY: An Effective Turntable Weight
• LP Lists
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• The TD124 page
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• The Turntable Mat
• Porgy & Bess
• The Remington Site