Formidable...!

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		Voyage Too Far Ahead	5:50	Play
2		All the Things You Are	4:44	Play
3		Poem for a Lonely Child	6:31	Play
4		Coccinelle	5:37	Play
5		Jitterbug Waltz (Cadenza)	2:54	Play
6		Black Moon	6:09	Play
7		The Great Escape	6:52	Play
8		'Round Midnight	7:10	Play
9		Manege	5:12	Play
10		Nest on the Hill	5:59	Play
11		Yesterdays	6:49	Play
12		That's my point...	0:53	Play
13		Prelude, Fugue on Lullaby of Birdland	10:41	Play

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Description	Amount
Bitmunk Marketplace Service	USD $0.98
CD Baby Artist Royalty	USD $5.97
CD Baby 9% Digital Distribution Cost	USD $0.54
Bitmunk Download Service	USD $0.94
Bitmunk MicroPayment Service	USD $0.01
Total	USD $8.41

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Description

NOTE: GO TO WWW.BERNARDPEIFFER.COM or WWW.MANEGEMUSIC.COM for complete hisotrical reference to BERNARD PEIFFER.

Attracted by the freedom and improvisational nature of jazz and influenced by the virtuoso piano stylings of Fats Waller and Art Tatum, Bernard made his professional jazz debut in 1943, at the age of 20. He joined the now legendary Django Reinhardt after years of prodigious classical training and performances in Europe. My father always credited Django with teaching him the music business and Reinhardt predicted a brilliant career for the young and flamboyant Peiffer. Post WW-II, he resumed his music career in 1946, playing concerts for the French Hot Club at the Salle Pleyel, continued his collaboration with Django and performed with many other jazz stars in France. By 1949 Bernard Peiffer was a French national name in music with the moniker Le Most. Through the early 1950s his career flourished in Europe as he won the Jazz Hot Magazine Award and recorded for the Blue Star label, achieving the Grande Prix du Disque in 1953. In 1954 he left his successful career in France immigrating to the United States and the birthplace of Jazz by the encouragement of confidants like Leonard Feather & Barry Ulanov who decreed him as Astounding. He eventually settled in Philadelphia with his wife, Monaco born Corine Jean-Jacques Taillardat, who left behind a successful professional acting career in Paris to support my fathers dream and raise a family. During his first decade in the United States, Bernards career included some watermark performances: Carnegie Hall, The Blue Note, Birdland, Village Vanguard, The Tonight Show, The Academy of Music, The Newport Jazz Festival and opened up for Mel Torme at the Mayflower hotel in Washington DC. It was customary for Mel to join the opening act on pianoexcept for that evening. When asked why he didnt join Bernard on-stage he replied, It would be like asking God to leave the church. He released several albums on Decca, EmArcy and Laurie records. While his early releases were critically acclaimed, he was consistently unsatisfied with the music and the labels control over the records. It would not be until his last two records that he be given full creative control, find his pianos voice and freely record without hindrance or coercion from record company executives.
Without a recording contract and free of the influence of producers and commercial pressures, my father fiercely followed his lifelong commitment to the principle that the creative artist must synthesize his influences, and make his own statement according to his own instincts., Memories of my fathers performances remain filled with great pride and it is my never ending wish that I couldve performed alongside him as his drummer. I would sit in the audience as a child; occasionally looking from side to side for glimpses of faces spellbound by my fathers playing, experiencing chills every time the audience erupted with applause. I can genuinely remark his performances were inspiring, not just entertainment to the casual jazz patron. He touched many people, often fellow musicians, who sought to raise their abilities and push the envelope of their playing as a boundless form of expression. He taught this to his students as well, pushing them to levels of expectation they once thought impossible.

Since passing, his name in music has fallen into near obscurity and much of his most creative and visionary playing has never been available until now. Before the end came, Bernard was planning and dreaming of his best work yet to come. This was so typical of perhaps someone who has a kind of visionary fire that required the sophisticated audience of today for fullest, widest appreciation of his genius. And a genius is assuredly what Bernard was, one whose achievement I believe will be recognized for what it was, as prophesized a generation ago and enjoyed by those of who became his friends and admirers
VIVE PEIFFER!