- Saint-Germain is an area in Paris France which is famous for jazz music, so famous in fact that Blue Note Recording artist Saint Germain borrows his name from the area. Jazz musicians the likes of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis introduced the music to the clubs in the area and to this day it remains synonymous with artistic life and music. Saint-Germain des Pres Cafe is a showcase of current jazz flavours fusing together elements of electro-jazz, nu-jazz and whatever buzz words are flying around for the music at this time.
The swinging Naturally by Slow Train starts off the mix featuring deep double bass antics, drums hit with brushes rather than sticks and an alto female voice set a cool tone for the CD. Squire For Hire by Nathan Haines offers a laidback summery jazz vibe to the CD featuring the spoken word vocals of Marlena Shaw.
United Future Organization takes the CD into a sharp turn in the uptempo direction with their Flying Saucer with the scatty vocals of Dee Dee Bridgewater. Anyone familiar with the UFO sound will immediately recognise the heavily percussive vibe and they give Flying saucer a nice 1920's big brass band feel with a swingtime beat. Metropolitan Jazz Affair offer up a jazzy mix of Yunowhathislifeez featuring a traditional arpeggio double bass line and some classy trumpet melodies.
Nicola Conte and Koop trade songs with Koop rewriting Nicola's Fuoco Fatuo turning it into a swinging jazz tune featuring the vocals of Earl Zinger while Nicola reversions Koop's Tonight transforming into a more uptempo affair giving it a nice percussive latin flavour - it's designed for the dancefloor and features awesome solo performances done on saxophone and piano. Koop then returns towards the end of the CD providing a remix to Shaun Escoffery's Breaking Away.
Lunar Chipmunk continue the latin flavour on Equal featuring the talents of Oscar who I assume is the wizard behind the percussive assualt from the bongos or on the keyboards providing a little melody to the track. Zuco 103 moves the mix into more of a Brazillian jazz direction with Q Baiano.
There a couple of classic trip hop/nu-jazz tracks in the form of Kruder & Dorfmeister's High Noon which appeared on their acclaimed K&D Sessions CD. It's a jazzy interpretation of the old 60's classic Blue Moon. Nicolette's No Government from 1994 is a trip hop classic, with it's dark Tricky-esque moods. Locate the single and hear some interesting remixes done by the likes of Plaid. Sitting alongside the classic are the new with Loopless providing electro-jazz sounds on red Thing Called Love
A couple of listens and I was hooked, while it's not a beatmatched mix CD, each song flows nicely into the next making it a great CD for lounging around. Be it smooth, up tempo, abstract or latin flavoured, the main flavour that can be sampled on Saint-Germain des Pres cafe is jazz. Not to be confused with French Blue Note recording artist Saint Germain, Saint-Germain des Pres Cafe is a heady variety of jazz soaked flavours all served up in a continuous format.