Person Details

Birthday: 1927-08-23 10:28:59

Aliases: No known aliases

Gender: Male

Place of birth: Algiers, Algeria

Homepage:

Movie Involvements: 10

TV Involvements: 1


Most Famous Work

Biography

Martial Solal (born August 23, 1927) is a French jazz pianist and composer. Solal was born in Algiers, to Algerian Jewish parents. He was persuaded to study clarinet, saxophone, and piano by his mother, who was an opera singer. He was kicked out of school in 1942 because of his parents' Jewish ancestry. Algeria was a French colony, and the Vichy government in France was following Nazi policies. Solal educated himself after having studied classical music in school. He imitated music he heard on the radio. When he was fifteen, he performed publicly for U.S. Army audiences. After settling in Paris in 1950, he began working with Django Reinhardt and expatriates from the United States such as Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He formed a quartet (occasionally also leading a big band) in the late 1950s, although he had been recording as a leader since 1953. Solal then began composing film music, eventually providing over twenty scores. He composed music for Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature film Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960). In 1963 he made an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island; the Newport '63 album purporting to be a recording of this gig is actually a studio recreation with overdubbed applause, as documented in the sleeve notes of some later reissues. At this time, his trio included bassist Guy Pedersen and drummer Daniel Humair. From 1968 he performed and recorded with Lee Konitz in Europe and the U.S. In its January 2011 issue, The Gruppen Review published a 12-page interview in which Solal discusses his work as an eternal "researcher in jazz". Source: Article "Martial Solal" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Most Famous Work

Breathless
Average
8

Breathless

(1960) Original Music Composer
Léon Morin, Priest
Average
7

Léon Morin, Priest

(1961) Original Music Composer
Two Men in Manhattan
Average
6

Two Men in Manhattan

(1959) Original Music Composer
Actors
Average
6

Actors

(2000) Original Music Composer
The Flamboyant Sex
Average
5

The Flamboyant Sex

(1961) Music
It Happened All Night
Average
6

It Happened All Night

(1960) Music
Backfire
Average
6

Backfire

(1964) Music
A Touch of Treason
Average
7

A Touch of Treason

(1962) Original Music Composer

Acting

Year Character Movie/Tv
2006 Self
1959 self
Year Character Movie/Tv

Sound

Year Role Movie/Tv
2000 Original Music Composer
1983 Original Music Composer
1964 Music
1962 Original Music Composer
1961 Original Music Composer
Music
1960 Music
Original Music Composer
1959 Original Music Composer
Year Role Movie/Tv

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