Les Barclay, Christiane Legrand

One of France's greatest jazz performers, Christiane Legrand was a member of the Double Six and the Swingle Singers. Born in Aix-les-Bains on August 21, 1930, the daughter of conductor Raymond Legrand and older sister of composer Michel Legrand made her vocal jazz debut between 1954 and 1956 with Eddie Barclay's Blue Stars, who imported American standards. Her agile soprano tessitura adapted easily to scat, which she popularized in France with Les Double Six (1960-1963), an ensemble founded by Jeannine "Mimi" Perrin, which met with great success thanks to its collaborations with Quincy Jones and Dizzy Gillespie, and which also featured top-flight accompanists. At the same time, Christiane Legrand led her own group Les Barclay (1960-1962), whose repertoire of covers included "Tom Pillibi" and "Les Enfants du Pirée", alongside songs with Latin rhythms. In 1962, with Ward Single, former American singer of the Double Six, she founded the Swingle Singers, which enjoyed great popularity in the USA for its a cappella and orchestrated jazz and classical repertoire, with vocal adaptations of pieces by Bach, Mozart and other composers from the Baroque and Romantic periods. Accompanying musicians and singers such as Francis Lemarque, Yves Montand, Les Quatre Barbus, John William and Jean-Jacques Debout, Christiane Legrand took part in the vocal dubbing of the soundtracks for Jacques Demy's films Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967) and Peau d'âne (1970), as well as Robert Enrico's Les Aventuriers (1967), with music by François de Roubaix. She sings the French versions of Mary Poppins (1963) with Bob Martin, and continues with the Swingle Singers until 1970. She collaborated with contemporary composers Luciano Berio, Marius Constant and Edgard Varèse, saxophonist Stan Getz and the group Procol Harum on the album Grand Hotel (1973), and recorded Christiane Legrand's bossa nova album Le Brésil in 1972. In 1976, together with two former Swingle Singers, she founded the vocal group Quire, which recorded an album, followed in 1994 by Chansons d'Amour. Christiane Legrand made her theatrical debut in Zazou (1989) and was invited by Véronique Le Berre to sing Ah, vous dirais-je maman! (2000). She died on November 1, 2011 at the age of 81.