Songbook

1. JEROME KERN - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
2. HENRI BETTI - C’est si bon
3. HENRI SALVADOR - Syracuse
4. COLE PORTER - Night And Day
5. RICHARD RODGERS - Isn’t It Romantic
6. COLE PORTER - I’ve Got You Under My Skin
7. IRVING BERLIN - Cheek To Cheek
8. MICHEL LEGRAND - The Windmills Of Your Mind
9. HAROLD ARLEN AND TED KOEHLER - Stormy Weather
10. SERGE GAINSBOURG - La javanaise
11. PASCAL AURIAT AND JEAN BOUCHÉTY - Il venait d’avoir 18 ans
12. GEORGE SHEARING - Lullaby of Birdland
13. MARGUERITE MONNOT - Hymne à l’amour
14. CHARLIE CHAPLIN - Smile
15. RICHARD RODGERS AND LORENZ HART - My Funny Valentine
16. LOUIGUY - La vie en rose
17. CHARLES TRENET AND LEO CHAULIAC - Que reste t-il de nos amours?
18. CHARLES AZNAVOUR - La bohème
19. BOB THIELE AND GEORGE DAVID WEISS - What A Wonderful World

“We wanted to make an intimate, soothing, chilled, loungey album of American standards and French chansons – an album that matched our style, taste and frame of reference, and above all our language as classical musicians ... A sort of layering of two different worlds,” says French-born clarinettist Pierre Génisson, who has partnered with the multi-faceted pianist Bruno Fontaine to produce Songbook.
 
The album features numbers by such songwriters as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Charles Aznavour, Michel Legrand, Charles Trenet and Serge Gainsbourg. Appearing beside Génisson and Fontaine are drummer Fabrice Moreau, bassist Benoit Dunoyer de Segonzac and five guest performers from different backgrounds and genres: vocalists Monica Bellucci, Youn Sun Nah, Kimberose and Lambert Wilson, and guitarist Thibaut Garcia. 
 
Génisson, one of the world’s leading clarinettists, trained in both Paris and Los Angeles, so a transatlantic musical mindset is second nature to him. Bruno Fontaine – who, like Génisson, studied at the Paris Conservatoire – is a multi-faceted instrumentalist, conductor, arranger and composer. Their collaboration dates back to 2017, when Génisson was leading a project inspired by the great American clarinettist Benny Goodman, the ‘King of Swing’ who also premiered works by composers such as Bartók, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Copland and Bernstein.