A Jazzy Creation

This disk is of the jazz inflected music of French composer Darius Milhaud. The performers are the snappily named Orchestre National de Lille-RegionNord / Pas-de Calais conducted by Jean-Claude Casadesus. Although not in the first rank of orchestras, their performances here in this repertoire are sound as a rock. Milhaud's listed compositions number into the four hundreds but he is best known for the series of imaginative works written at the end of WW1 and during the 1920s. of the works featured on this disk, Le Bouef Sur le Toit is a work of unusual rhythmic and melodic appeal and Latin American overtones, originally composed as the background music for a silent film. The ballet L'Homme et Son Desir for four wordless singers, solo wind strings and a vast percussion section was seen as the composer's most radical and influential work. The solo singers sound a little strained at times but just about carry the day ( Tomoko Makuuchi soprano, Jian Zhao mezzo, Mathias Vidal tenor and Bernard Deletre bass ) The disk also has the composer's most played work, the jazzy ballet La Creation du Monde, scored for alto saxophone and 17 players and inspired by an American big band. The one work on the disk that eschews any jazz influence is Suite Provencale, a suite from incidental music to a play which makes extensive use of old Provencale melodies from both a court and a folk origin.