Jacques Loussier and the Pekinel Twins play Bach
I heard a track by this combination on the Breakfast Programme on BBC Radio 3 yesterday morning and thought I’d include something on here; it’s basically the Jacques Loussier Trio, which is famous for its Jazz re-workings of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach with the addition of the identical twins Güher and Süher Pekinel on pianos.
Apparently some members of the Radio 3 audience didn’t take kindly to Ian Skelly’s decision to play something by this combination, but I have to say I loved it; it really put a spring in my step. I’ve remarked before on this blog that many Jazz musicians are great admirers of Bach (who was himself a talented improviser). It’s not difficult to understand why this is the case, particularly in the case of the keyboard works, because the music always has such a rich and compelling harmonic progression built into it – just what a Jazz musician needs. Bach’s compositions are so well constructed that they can cope with being pulled around more than those of any other composer I can think of. Above all, despite the change of musical vocabulary and the addition of a rhythm section, the best Jazz versions still somehow manage to sound like Bach….
From the following clips you can see that the twins play from sheet music – I think the arrangement was written by Jacques Loussier – while Loussier’s contribution is largely improvised. In the clip they play versions of Bach’s Triple Concerto in D minor BWV 1063 (with Jacques Loussier) followed the Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1060 (without Loussier)…
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In the Dark 
February 21, 2014 at 3:00 pm
I think that’s actually true of the two pieces played here; Bach often arranged and transcribed parts of his own work to incorporate them somewhere else. That was largely because he was required to write so much music by the terms of his employment!