Appreciation... Helena Noguerra & Serge Rezvani

The other bit of CD purchasing I did last week was to pick up Helena Noguerra's nouvel album, Fraise Vanilla, which pays tribute to the best musical works of Serge Rezvani. Rezvani's initial artistic endeavours were as a painter, but in by the sixties he had adopted the nickname of Cyrus Bassiak and started passing his time as a musician and songwriter. His first notable work as a songwriter was his contribution to Francois Truffaut's 1961 film, Jules et Jim, in composing the song "Le Tourbillon" as interpreted by Jeanne Moreau. He even played himself in the film, albeit under the pseudonym Bassiak, in the role of Albert.

His next major contribution to the French Nouvelle Vague soundtracks of the sixties was to accept Jean-Luc Goddard's invitation to compose the songs of Pierrot le Fou which starred Jean Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. After that, Bassiak became the premiere composer of songs for French films of the era. Now, more than forty years later, Belgian singer, Helena Noguerra, is working with Rezvani, who is no longer working under his under alias, to revisit the most wonderful songs of his music repertoire and revive some of the most emblematic music scores of the French New Wave Cinema (Nouvelle Vague) of the 1960's.

It's a great album for fans of French pop and cinema! Here's a promo for the album:



And from, Jules et Jim, "Le Tourbilion":



And from Pierrot le fou, "Ma ligne de chance":



C'est tout pour maintenant. Bonne nuit!