Songbook

LPA

1. JEROME KERN - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
2. HENRI BETTI - C’est si bon
3. COLE PORTER - I’ve Got You Under My Skin
4. MICHEL LEGRAND - The Windmills Of Your Mind
5. HENRI SALVADOR - Syracuse
6. BOB THIELE AND GEORGE DAVID WEISS - What A Wonderful World

LPB

1. IRVING BERLIN - Cheek To Cheek
2. PASCAL AURIAT AND JEAN BOUCHÉTY - Il venait d’avoir 18 ans
3. SERGE GAINSBOURG - La javanaise
4. HAROLD ARLEN AND TED KOEHLER - Stormy Weather
5. GEORGE SHEARING - Lullaby of Birdland
6. RICHARD RODGERS AND LORENZ HART - My Funny Valentine

“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.