FAREWELL TO…
Francis Lai Born 1932 Composer
Francis Lai won fame as one of France’s bestloved film composers, whose score for Love
Story in 1970 won him an Academy Award.
After formative years performing as a pianist and accordionist in orchestras in and around his native Nice, Lai found work as an accompanist in Marseilles. There he discovered jazz and the chanteuse Claude Goaty, Film favourite:
whom he followed to Paris Francis Lai
where his song writing in the studio career took flight. Living and working among Montmartre’s artistic milieu, Lai wrote the first of some 600 songs, and went on to become accompanist to the legendary Edith Piaf, for whom he would pen C’était pas moi, among others. He also encountered film director Claude Lelouch, the pair forming an indomitable partnership that continued right until Lai’s death. Composing music for films became a fruitful creative outlet for Lai, who would win a Golden Globe for his first Lelouch score – Un homme et une femme (1966). Soon in demand as a composer, Lai worked on a string of French, UK and US productions for directors such as Michael Winner, René Clément, Terence Young and Arthur Hiller. It was for Hiller that he created the score that would win him an Oscar, along with a second Golden Globe. Love Story’s poignantly romantic theme also became a chart success across the globe.
Roy Hargrove Born 1969 Jazz trumpeter
As influential as he was experimental, Roy Hargrove (pictured left in 1996) inspired a legion of fans, not least as the bandleader of his progressive RH Factor group. Though primarily associated with hard bop, he excelled across a range of styles, and enjoyed collaborations with leading jazz musicians such as fellow trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Born in Waco, Texas, Hargrove was discovered by Marsalis while at college in Dallas. From there, he moved first to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music, then to New York where he continued his studies at the New School. In 1990 he released Diamond in the Rough, the first of many albums. Two of those discs would win Grammy Awards: 1998’s Habana, recorded with Crisol, his Afro-cuban band; and, in 2002, Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall, whose other participants included keyboardist Herbie Hancock.
Also remembered…
Along with Edward Greenfield and Robert Layton, the critic Ivan March (born 1927 ) co-founded and co-wrote the esteemed publication The Penguin Stereo Record Guide which later became The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs. He reviewed for a number of other publications, including Cassettes and Cartridges and Gramophone magazines. As head of music at BBC Scotland from 1972-91, Martin Dalby (born 1942) proved an invaluable champion of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, arguably even saving it from possible closure. He was also a fine composer, whose music was performed at the BBC Proms and regularly at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney.