La Chanson de Jacky (1965)

Voir un ami pleurer (1977)

La Valse à mille temps (1959)

Jacques Brel wrote most of his songs, words and music, for himself to perform. Given his extraordinarily raw manner of delivery - he was once described, with only a little exaggeration, as “a singing animal” - that factor makes most of them less than ideal material for anyone else. While some pop singers have had successes with Brel songs, in suitable arrangements, musicians with classically trained voices have for the most part avoided them. Of the three items adventurously chosen for this occasion, La Chanson de Jacky is a characteristically vigorous display of verbal virtuosity and at the same time a confession of dissatisfaction with a stage career the Belgian singer was about to abandon, Voir un ami pleurer a late expression of compassion from the year before his death, and La Valse à mille temps a youthfully exuberant apotheosis of the waltz.