Salut Aznavour!
Jean Brassard pays fitting tribute;
the most beautiful lesbian film
BY DAVID NOH
Of all the great songwriters
of the last century,
one of the greatest, most
distinctive, and — to
Americans — least well-known
is Charles Aznavour, who died a
year ago at age 94. Astonishingly
prolifi c, he was the writer of some
1,000 songs — with countless recordings;
music poured out of him.
He was born in Paris, the son of
a pair of Armenian immigrants
who, as members of the Resistance
during World War II, hid refugees
from Nazi persecution. The family
was awarded the Raoul Wallenberg
Award in 2017 for risking their
lives in this way, and that spirit of
humanity always informed Aznavour’s
work.
He began performing as a child
with his father who was a singer,
then became an actor on stage and
in the fi lm “La Guerre des Gosses,”
fi nally turning to nightclub work
as a dancer. In 1944, he partnered
with actor Pierre Roche and began
writing songs, and was encouraged
to sing by his mentor Edith
Piaf, who hired him as her opening
act. His ability to sing in numerous
languages gave him the kind of international
appeal sought by major
venues like Carnegie Hall and the
Royal Albert Hall, exacerbated by
the success of records like “She,”
“The Old-Fashioned Way,” “Sunday
Is Not My Day,” “Après l’amour,”
“Sur ma vie,” and the great, harrowing
“Yesterday, When I Was
Young.” That last was Mickey Mantle’s
favorite, sung by the Yankee
slugger’s request at his funeral.
Aznavour’s music had remarkable
reach, with some 180 million records
sold in his lifetime.
Though not gay himself, one
of this all-encompassing artist’s
most beloved songs deals specifi -
cally with queerness, “Comme ils
disent” (or, as it is better known,
“What Makes a Man”). This 1972
work, covered by innumerable artists
from Marc Almond to Aznavour’s
great friend and champion
Jean Brassard during a recent interview in the garden of St. Luke in the Fields in the West Village.
Liza Minnelli, tells the story of a
drag performer who lives with his
mother and gets fulfi llment from
fooling his audience nightly about
his gender, while pining hopelessly
for men who prefer women and enduring
a time when homosexuality
remained too widely forbidden.
The rules that some of us must
break
Just to keep living
I know my life is not a crime
DAVID NOH
I’m just a victim of my time
I stand defenseless
Nobody has the right to be
The judge of what is right for me
Tell me if you can
What makes a man a man.
That’s how the song ends, and,
in its way, it might be the fi rst-ever
gay protest anthem. I am so looking
forward to hearing it again
soon, when the wonderfully gifted
Jean Brassard brings his Aznavour
tribute show, “I Have Lived,”
to Pangea on September 23, with
a run to follow in London at The
Pheasantry October 11-12.
I met Brassard for an interview
in the charming secret garden of
the Village church St. Lukes in the
Fields, and he observed, “Aznavour
strikes me as a playwright, or even
fi lmmaker, who just happened to
write in short form — songs. For a
performer like me, who approaches
everything from an actor’s point of
view, his world offers a realm of
possibilities. He specialized in love,
a recurrent theme, and there isn’t
any aspect of it that he didn’t cover,
from the very beautiful to the very
ugly.”
I fi rst met Brassard when he did
his luminous salute to another
French music (and fi lm) icon, Yves
Montand, and was then struck
by his compelling stage presence,
charming voice, and pure artistry
in the way he deftly wove Montand’s
music and career into memories of
his own life, growing up in a close
and loving family of French Canadians.
He has only gotten better
since, and I cannot think of a
better interpreter to introduce me
and so many others to the kaleidoscopic
oeuvre of Aznavour.
Brassand is marvelously knowledgeable
about the rich tradition
of the French chanson, and other
singing contemporaries of Aznavour’s,
most of them new names to
my ears, such as Boris Vian and
Leo Ferre (“another tremendous
poet, darker, critical as well as
apocalyptical and at times tremendously
sad”). I have always adored
Charles Trenet, most known here
for his indelible, mellifl uous “La
mer,” who came before Aznavour’s
generation, but was very popular
— and gay. Brassard told me that
Trenet was a big infl uence on Aznavour,
who loved him and bought
his entire catalogue.
“People forget how brave and out
there it was for him to do ‘Comme
il disent’ at a time when being gay
➤ IN THE NOH, continued on p.35
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