Gerard Jouannest
Gerard Jouannest born in 1933 with Vanves in the Hauts-de-Seine, is a pianist French known mainly to have been the guide of Jacques Brel and the husband of Juliette Gréco.
Biography
Gerard Jouannest was born on May 2nd 1933. His/her grandfather is piano maker, his working father, in love with music. An enthusiasm which it transmits to his son who is allowed with the Conservatoire National of Music of Paris in 1946. It will leave there with a First Price Piano. After an interruption - due to military service to the Morocco - Gerard Jouannest prepares to present the assistance of professor to the Academy of Music of Besancon. The brutal death of his/her father, two days before the examination, will put a term at its dream to become concert performer.
Pressed to provide for the needs for its family, it is engaged as pianist of bar, then like guide of the Three Ménestrels in 1957. During one year, it will discover the professional universe of the song and will occur in several rooms, in particular that of the Three-Donkeys. This Parisian Cabaret where will follow one another of many artists of talent, of which that which will change the life of Gerard Jouannest: Jacques Brel. At the time, it is François Rauber, him so resulting from the National Academy of Music, which accompanies Brel on scene. Gerard Jouannest discovers this musical duet, fascinated by the quality of their songs and their interpretations. Something is tied then between the three men, a indéfectible friendship, a fusion of talents to which the French song will take another dimension. Brel that we know today was born from its collaborations with Gerard Jouannest and François Rauber. The latter must give up the rounds, and it is quite naturally in Gerard Jouannest that Brel is addressed to the end of the year 1958 to propose to him to accompany it on scene. Then begin a life of Bohemia for the two artists who furrow the roads, connect the rounds and reinforce their friendship.
From guide, Gerard Jouannest goes gradually, and thorough by Brel, to become his type-setter. Its first musical contribution, in 1959, relates to one of the most known songs of the artist: does not leave me . Brel, which composes on its guitar, at the head has a melody which it does not manage to develop. Gerard Jouannest the cheek with the piano and finds the bridge musical which makes it possible Brel to perfect what will become an immense success.
This first collaboration will remain unknown since Gerard Jouannest, not having never thought of to launch out in the composition, is not registered with SACEM. It will be thing made in 1960. Brel has a presentiment of all the potential of its pianist and the formidable artistic asset which it represents. Consequently, it will not cease calling upon him, of its first composition recorded with the SACEM - One does not forget anything - with so many wonders born of the collaboration and the exceptional friendship of these two men: Brussels , Madeleine , the old men , Mathilde , the song of Jacky , Wire of , the song of the old lovers , I arrive . In nearly ten years, Gerard Jouannest will compose thirty-four songs for and with Brel. He never composes starting from a text. Perhaps the quality of these musical works holds in the fact that the two artists work always together, into simultaneous, the words of the one starting the notes of the other, or vice versa. This collaboration ends with the decision of Brel to stop the scene in 1967 definitively.
Its friendship and its fidelity will be immutable, even after the death of Brel in 1978.
In February 1968, Gerard Jouannest receives a call of Barbara asking him to accompany it on scene. A missed appointment since the singer will cancel her round for health reasons. The very same day, François Rauber calls Gerard Jouannest to propose to him to leave to the Canada with another exceptional singer: Juliette Gréco. A collaboration which was to be only provisional, and which perdure today, nearly forty years later. They marry in 1989.
Juliette Gréco draws from the multiple talents of her pianist by also entrusting to him the majority of the musics of her albums. After his work with Jacques Brel, Gerard Jouannest must adapt to a new manner of composing, since he collaborates from now on with various authors: Pierre Seghers, Richard Cannavo, Jean Tardieu, Benjamin Biolay, Christophe Miossec, and others which sign a whole album like Maurice Fanon, Henri Gougaud, Jean-Claude Carrière or Etienne Roda-Gil. Thanks to Gerard Jouannest, certain songs of Juliette Gréco are born: My son sings , Vivre , the years of formerly , One day of summer or It was a night train .
In 1986, Gerard Jouannest is solicited by the Belgian actor Ronny Coutteure to put in music texts of the Tales of a beer drinker , adapted work of Charles Deulin. The musical comedy will be assembled to Belgium in 1991. Then Jean-Claude Brialy requires of him to compose the music of two telefilms, George Simpleton and the lady with the camellias . With more than two hundred and sixty creations with his repertory, Gerard Jouannest is one today type-setter impossible to circumvent of the history of the French song. In 2006, on the album of Miossec the Pressure it composes 30 years , and on that of Abd Al Malik Gibraltar : Gravity , It dreams and upright the Alchemist .
In 2007, it receives the price of spring of the SACEM (Price Lucien and Jean Boyer)