Le Boeuf sur le toit

In a startling new departure for the French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, he invites a diverse group of musical friends to join him in celebrating Le Boeuf sur le toit, the legendary Paris cabaret that became a hot spot of Parisian and international culture in the heady 1920s. A confluence of jazzy musical currents brings together French composers like Ravel, Milhaud, Wiener and Doucet and American songwriters like Gershwin, Kern and Porter.

“This CD, Le Boeuf sur le toit, is completely different from anything I have recorded up till now,” says Alexandre Tharaud. While each of his previous Erato albums has focused on a single composer – Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin – here the French pianist presents more than 20 items by a kaleidoscope of musical talent from both classical and popular milieux: Ravel, Milhaud, Gershwin, Kern, Porter, Kalman, W.C. Handy (the so-called Father of the Blues), the French piano duo Wiener and Doucet and more.

Their point of convergence is the legendary Paris cabaret, Le Boeuf sur le toit, a hotspot and melting pot of Parisian and international culture in the heady 1920s. Its name – meaning ‘the ox on the roof’ – was appropriated by the cabaret’s owner, Louis Moysès, from the composer Darius Mihaud, who had used it for a celebrated orchestral score, written after a visit to Brazil and filled with syncopated dance rhythms. Jean Cocteau, the Renaissance man of French artistic life in the mid-20th century, brokered the deal.