Biography
Rene Faure bears a name evocative of an impressionist painter, yet his reputation rests on a single dazzling boogie-woogie piano performance captured on disc. That performance was a rendition of Meade "Lux" Lewis's "Honky Tonk Train Blues," and discographer Tom Lord, along with the exhaustive compilation of jazz sessions, lists no further recordings by him. The 1940 track emerged from a series of sides the Frankie Trumbauer band cut for Eli Oberstein's Varsity label.
Later that same year producer Joe Davis acquired the masters from Oberstein and issued four of the performances, Faure's solo among them, inside a boxed "four 78 album." The manner of that release may have reinforced Faure's anonymity as decisively as the fact that it remained his sole documented effort. Although the Trumbauer band receives label credit, none of its members appear on the track, which consists entirely of unaccompanied piano. The pianist who should have been credited is not the Rene Faure whose French film career began with acting roles in the 1950s.
Later that same year producer Joe Davis acquired the masters from Oberstein and issued four of the performances, Faure's solo among them, inside a boxed "four 78 album." The manner of that release may have reinforced Faure's anonymity as decisively as the fact that it remained his sole documented effort. Although the Trumbauer band receives label credit, none of its members appear on the track, which consists entirely of unaccompanied piano. The pianist who should have been credited is not the Rene Faure whose French film career began with acting roles in the 1950s.