Michel Legrand

Michel Legrand ranked among the foremost film composers of his time while also distinguishing himself as an elegant jazz pianist and tunesmith whose melodic approach captured the romantic atmosphere, fashionable grace, and poised sophistication of Paris. A piano virtuoso trained in the classical tradition, he surfaced during the 1950s through a string of popular atmospheric recordings that culminated in the historic 1958 album Legrand Jazz, which united him with Miles Davis, Ben Webster, Bill Evans, and additional leading players. He soon shifted focus toward scoring motion pictures, where his buoyant charts helped shape the auditory identity of the French New Wave in works such as Jean-Luc Godard’s My Life to Live and Agnès Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7. A sustained artistic alliance with director Jacques Demy began with the groundbreaking musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Welcomed by the Hollywood establishment, Legrand worked repeatedly with lyricists Marilyn & Alan Bergman, securing Academy Awards for their contributions to the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair and the 1983 production Yentl. Beyond his celebrated screen scores, he persisted in releasing personal projects such as the 1968 trio set At Shelly’s Manne-Hole and more expansive sessions involving Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Stephane Grappelli, Natalie Dessay, and further collaborators. Returning to his classical foundation in 2017, he issued Michel Legrand: Concerto pour piano; Concerto pour violoncelle, and the following year he composed the music for Peter Bogdanovich’s finished cut of Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind. That proved his final major undertaking; he passed away in early 2019 following treatment for a pulmonary infection.

Born in Paris in 1932 as Michel Jean Legrand, he was raised in a household devoted to music together with his sister, the soprano vocalist Christiane. His father, the esteemed composer and conductor Raymond Legrand, and his mother, Marcelle Ter-Mikaëlian—sister of saxophonist and bandleader Jacques Hélian—separated when the boy was three, leaving him frequently on his own. During those solitary years he first recognized his musical gift while practicing on a neighbor’s aging piano. At ten his mother placed him in the Paris Conservatory, where he thrived under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, Henri Challan, and Noël Gallon. Upon graduating with highest distinction, he launched his professional life as musical director and accompanist for singer and actor Maurice Chevalier. In that role he journeyed globally, reaching the United States for the first time. In 1950 he also introduced his solo career with the bestselling instrumental album I Love Paris. Additional thematic and mood-driven collections appeared, among them 1955’s Holiday in Rome, 1956’s Bonjour Paris, and 1958’s Legrand in Rio.

After the success of those conceptual records, Legrand completed the ambitious 1958 project Legrand Jazz, an all-star affair that included Miles Davis, Ben Webster, Herbie Mann, Phil Woods, and other prominent musicians. Throughout the decade he likewise ventured into film scoring, beginning with Henri Verneuil’s 1955 drama Les Amants du Tage. Recognition followed for his contributions to pictures by French New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, and François Reichenbach. His most intimate collaboration developed with Jacques Demy, resulting in the inventive 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which blended stylized song traditions with a grounded outlook. The number “Je ne pourrai jamais vivre sans toi” found wide favor and was later interpreted by Nana Mouskouri, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and additional artists. Legrand and Demy sustained their partnership on 1966’s The Young Girls of Rochefort and 1970’s Donkey Skin.

During the late 1960s Legrand relocated to Hollywood and thereafter divided his time between Paris and Los Angeles. He supplied the score for Norman Jewison’s 1968 heist picture The Thomas Crown Affair. Widely regarded as one of the most refined and influential soundtracks of the period, it earned an Academy Award for Best Original Song with “The Windmills of Your Mind.” Co-written with English lyrics by Marilyn & Alan Bergman, the piece inaugurated an enduring partnership that spanned the subsequent two decades. Further Oscar nominations for Best Original Song arrived for “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” from 1969’s Happy Ending and for “Pieces of Dreams,” the title theme from Daniel Haller’s 1970 film. Additional notable scores from the 1970s encompassed the 1971 television drama Brian’s Song, The Go-Between, and The Summer of ’42. Both Brian’s Song and The Summer of ’42 received Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Composition. In 1973 Legrand also created the music for Orson Welles’ docudrama F for Fake.

Outside his screen assignments he joined bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne for a live trio performance later released as At Shelly’s Manne-Hole. He further appeared on saxophonist Bud Shank’s 1969 album Windmills of Your Mind. The 1972 release Sarah Vaughan with Michel Legrand presented standards alongside several songs Legrand had written with Marilyn & Alan Bergman. That same year he contributed performances and orchestrations to Stan Getz’s Communications ’72. He arranged Lena Horne’s 1975 album Lena & Michel and supplied the orchestration for Phil Woods’ Images, which captured Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band. Le Jazz Grand appeared in 1978, showcasing Legrand leading a large ensemble through his “Southern Routes” jazz suite drawn from the soundtrack to Les Routes de la Sud. The album also contained several septet selections featuring altoist Woods, trumpeter Jon Faddis, and baritonist Gerry Mulligan.

Throughout the 1980s Legrand moved fluidly between film scoring and jazz-centered recordings. Independently he documented the 1982 septet album After the Rain, again with Phil Woods together with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, trumpeter Joe Wilder, guitarist Gene Bertoncini, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Grady Tate. The same year he and the Bergmans earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” from the film of that title; the number also reached the Top Five on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart in a version by James Ingram and Patti Austin. Most prominently, Legrand composed the songs for Barbra Streisand’s 1983 directorial debut Yentl. Once more partnering with Marilyn & Alan Bergman, he co-wrote “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” and “The Way He Makes Me Feel,” each of which received Best Original Song nominations at the Academy Awards; Legrand himself won for Best Adaptation Score. Other soundtrack assignments from the era included the 1980 rom-com Falling in Love Again starring Elliot Gould and Susannah York, a score largely unused for Louis Malle’s 1981 film Atlantic City, 1982’s Best Friends with Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn, and Sean Connery’s 1983 James Bond return in Never Say Never Again.

In 1991 Legrand rejoined Miles Davis for the soundtrack to Dingo, marking their first joint effort since the 1958 album Legrand Jazz. The following year he released the trio album Autumn in Paris and recorded with violinist Stéphane Grappelli. He next teamed with opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa for 1992’s Magic: Kiri Sings Michel Legrand. Another classical collection, Erik Satie by Michel Legrand, followed in 1993, as did Michel Plays Legrand, which featured trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, trombonist Bill Watrous, altoist Bud Shank, flutists Buddy Collette and Hubert Laws, guitarist John Pisano, bassist Brian Bromberg, and drummer Peter Erskine. The trio date The Warm Shade of Memory surfaced in 1995 and included harmonica player Toots Thielemans as guest. Legrand maintained a steady output of film scores, among them Paul Mazursky’s 1993 Hollywood satire The Pickle, Robert Altman’s 1994 fashion-industry satire Pret-A-Porter (Ready to Wear), and Claude Lelouch’s 1995 adaptation of Les Misérables.

Legrand issued his first solo-piano recording of his own compositions, Michel Legrand by Michel Legrand, in 2002. He remained active in cinema, writing the score for Claude Lelouch’s thriller And Now… Ladies and Gentlemen, which starred Jeremy Irons and singer Patricia Kaas. He composed the music for the 2009 French-Belgian drama Oscar and the Lady in Pink, then returned to solo work with the holiday collection Noel! Noel! Noel! in 2011. Two years later he partnered with singer Natalie Dessay on the studio album Entre Elle et Lui. In 2014 he premiered a ballet drawn from Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár’s 1909 play Liliom, commissioned by choreographer John Neumeier and the Hamburg Ballet; that same year his opera Dreyfus opened at Opéra de Nice. He also toured in observance of the fiftieth anniversary of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and scored the film La Rançon de la Gloire (“The Price of Fame”). The all-star studio album Michel Legrand & Ses Amis appeared in 2015 with guest appearances by Charles Aznavour, Muriel Robin, Thomas Dutronc, and others. The next year he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Western Michigan University and toured with singer Vincent Niclo. In 2017 he collaborated with the Orchestre Philharmonique de France on the classical album Michel Legrand: Concerto pour piano; Concerto pour violoncelle and reunited with Natalie Dessay for Between Yesterday and Tomorrow. In 2018 he furnished the score for the long-unfinished Orson Welles project The Other Side of the Wind, finally completed by director Peter Bogdanovich and premiered on Netflix; the newly orchestrated music marked a return to work with Welles after their earlier collaboration on 1973’s F for Fake. Legrand died early in 2019 after hospitalization for a pulmonary infection.