Le Partage des Eaux — {André Ricros + Louis Sclavis}

Founder of the Agency for Traditional Musics from Auvergne (in the centre of France) as well as of the Silex music label, singer André Ricros also plays the cabrette (a kind of small bagpipe, also known under the french name of musette) and is a great amateur of jazz music. On this album co-signed with clarinet wizard Louis Sclavis, and recorded with trombone master Alain Gibert, André Ricros composes with rythm boxes, bendirs, melodicas and samplers on traditional songs from the Auvergne country. Avoiding the too-often heard and insipid smorgasbord of fusion music, this heartly and innovative music shows cheerful inventivity and is far from any conservative nostalgia.

- listen to a few excerpts -
France 1989 - {Silex Y 225003}
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La Paloma - Hans Albers {1953}

This recording of La Paloma by Hans Albers is part of the amazing Trikont collection attempting to gather as many recordings of this old song as possible. But when my wife bought this 1953 EP in Hamburg for my birthday, we would not know that Albers was as famous as the tune itself… The way he nonchalantly (not to say drunkenly) sings along with the accordion and an ethereal choir, actually made us thought of the perfect score for a SpongeBob SquarePants episode (the Popeye cliché on the cover is also great)!

1953 - Decca - vinyl ripped

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