JAZZ HOT

 She’s a singer full of delicacy , her voice being beautifully resonant and powerful through the whole range. She carves ‘Monk’s Mood’ with great feeling. The beautiful duet with the bass on ‘Crepuscule with Nellie’ is thrilling, the one with the piano on ‘Round about Midnight’ will charm you. Bringing his own harmonisation, Goualch performed some of the songs from Monk’s repertoire without ever imitating him. He indeed managed to find a personal interpretation of those tunes.

 Serge Baudot (Octobre 2001)

 Est Républicain 

 ‘… A concert that starts with a solo performance of Valérie Graschaire on Monk’s Mood ; Bemsha Swing - for which the singer wrote lyrics in French – carries a fine humoristic flavour and Rhythm A Ning appears under a brand new light. Monk was already known as one of the great composers of the century. We know now this duet put      his mark in a universe of its own…’

Vincent Oudot (avril 2001)

 The disc you are about to buy was recorded at a moment of climax, with a singer ‘fan’ of Monk’s music; Valérie Graschaire. She expresses herself in English as well as in French, very sensitively and tenderly, supported by the great Pierre-Alain Goualch.

About this man, I would like to bring your attention on the fact that even if Monk had made some Broadway melodies his own, wrapping them in his own unique atmosphere, the soloist Pierre-Alain does not imitate Monk but incorporates his style in his playing for our greatest pleasure. In short, this natural meeting between two wholehearted ‘monkians’ proves to our ears that if all of Monk’s compositions had been songs, they would have easily become hits.

This is an evidence and this duet impregnated with a common admiration for the only Melodious Thonk shows this brilliantly.

By François Postif, writer, author of ‘Blue Monk’.