Franck Pourcel’s French Sax
The golden alto of Jo Krasko with Franck Pourcel’s Parisian strings.
Here is Paris, in a manner in which Paris has never previously been presented on a
long-playing, high fidelity records.
Franck Pourcel’s arranging and conducting talents need few explanatory notes. Nor
does his superb and beautifully recorded orchestra, an orchestra comprised of forty-five of the
finest musicians in France.
Jo Krasko, however, is just beginning his rise to prominence. He was first heard as a
soloist, playing his golden alto saxophone, in Capitol’s memorable (and still popular) “La
Femme” album. “La Femme” ’s music was composed by the imaginative Baxter to Paris,
where Pourcel arranged and recorded the music with Krasko as alto sax soloist. His skill, his
enviable technique and his ability to translate various emotions to records was immediately
apparent.
And so, the Krasko saxophone with the musical Pourcel strings in “La Femme” led to
this sequel, French sax.
The selections feature some of the world’s great popular music, music as beloved in
France (and throughout Europe) as it is in North America.
Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, the late Victor Young, Bobby Black, Dany Michel, Jack
Lawrence and Pourcel himself are the composers of the moody, sensuous “French sax”
musician an exciting combination of top American, British and French creators.
The Krasko-Pourcel combination presents this extraordinary assortment of moods as
only the French are capable. One doesn’t have to be in love to enjoy it.
But, as the French say, it helps.