"It's going to be the most sublime album with songs to yell in the face of death!" Michel Legrand promised when we met him last summer after the release of an anthology of his film music. Legrand is now back in the spotlight, keeping his word with Legrand Nougaro, an album that retraces the short but infinitely sweet - and highly productive - collaboration between two legendary greats of the popular French music world. Legrand, the internationally renowned composer and orchestra conductor, stepped in front of the mike to perform songs he wrote over forty yeas ago when Nougaro, the feisty young poet and singer from Toulouse, was just starting out.

Turn the clock back to the early 60s and a groundbreaking album has just appeared, marked with a clear warning on its cover: "Since none of the arrangements were written in advance, this album is 100% improvised!" The debut LP by Claude Nougaro certainly didn't go unnoticed – and it soon became clear that songs such as Les Don Juan, Le Cinéma and Le Rouge et le noir could never have been recorded by an ordinary orchestra put through their paces by a blasé conductor!

It's 1962, the year "yéyé" (French rock'n'roll) swept France, but Nougaro's album is pure jazz through and through. Michel Legrand, the man waving the conductor's baton, is a young prize-winning graduate from the Conservatoire, who has made his name as one of the most innovative new talents with the Philips label. He has recently scored arrangements for the likes of Juliette Gréco and Henri Salvador and revamped the sound of Maurice Chevalier (who made him his musical director). Legrand has also carved out a white-hot reputation on the jazz scene, working with top American jazz stars and recording a series of best-selling instrumental albums including I Love Paris (1954) and Legrand Jazz (1958). The latter has gone down in music history as being one of the rare albums that is still available in Blue Note's prestigious back catalogue.

Swing style and radical new rhythms

Going into the studio with Nougaro, Legrand takes his seat at the piano, surrounded by an all-star cast of musicians (including organist Eddy Louiss, who will remain a lifetime friend and collaborator of Nougaro's). Legrand adopts a new approach to recording, working with the singer as if he were a be-bop instrumentalist. Using his own compositions he injects a groundbreaking new swing style into Nougaro's lyrics, which will help the young Toulousan singer break away from his core audience (previously limited to the cabaret scene) and break onto the musical mainstream. The album lays the groundwork for what would become Nougaro's signature style, a style that revolved around an athletic, ultra-physical stage presence and a desire to invent a radical new rhythm for the French language.

Taking these songs out of the drawer and dusting them off almost two years after Nougaro's death, Michel Legrand has imposed an interesting new vision on the originals. And all the more so as, besides re-recording the most obvious classics from their repertoire (such as Le Cinéma and Les Don Juan), he has also pulled out B-sides and forgotten archive material such as Alcatraz (which Nougaro never actually recorded). Then there's Mon dernier concert, a previously unknown song that Nougaro's widow entrusted to Legrand. The song contains the immortal lines: "I'd like my voice / to be heard by a child / for the first time. / Going home / he tells his father / What I want to do / is be a singer, too." One of the other highpoints on Legrand Nougaro is when the Toulousan singer's famously gravely vocals echo from beyond the grave on a "virtual" duo (Legrand mixing his own voice with original 1962 recordings of Nougaro singing Le Rouge et le Noir and Les Don Juan).

 Hollywood versus Harlem

Comparing Legrand and Nougaro's versions, you catch a glimpse of a different France and a different America. In Legrand's version there's a bit more Hollywood, a bit more music-hall, in Nougaro's a touch more Harlem, a touch more cabaret. Whereas Legrand goes in for melodic fervour, singing with his hand over his heart, Nougaro is all about snapping fingers and passion for rhythm. There's something softer, silkier and lighter in Legrand's vocal style, compared to the brutal in-the-ring punch of boxing-gloved Nougaro. On the whole, Legrand is more of a butterfly compared to Nougaro's raging bull - and while Nougaro dreamt of being Louis Armstrong, Legrand would have made a more likely Nat King Cole! However, what Legrand's new versions lose in sharp left and right hooks, they gain in style and fancy footwork.

At the end of the day, Legrand's vocals leave more room for jazz, opening up the stage to individual instrumental performances. And this album contains instrumental virtuosity in droves, featuring driving double bass from the great Ron Carter, masterly harmonies from Kenny Werner and Thierry Eliez on the piano and the Hammond organ and some truly impressive drum playing from André Ceccarelli. The band's collective energy conspires to make Legrand Nougaro much more than a simple album. It's a genuine musical tribute worthy of taking its place at Blue Note, that most prestigious of jazz labels.

Michel Legrand Legrand Nougaro (Blue Note-EMI) 2005