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Boris Vian

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Boris Vian was a French polymath, remembered above all as a novelist, born on 10 March 1920 in Ville d'Avray near Paris and died on 23 June 1959. His mother, an amateur pianist and harpist, chose his first name after a performance of the opera Boris Godunov. At the age of twelve he contracted rheumatic fever, after which his parents overprotected him. In 1936 he became interested in jazz; the following year he began to play the trumpet and became a member of the Hot Club de France. In 1939 he helped to organise Duke Ellington's second concert in France.

Music and breakthrough

His novels under his own name have an idiosyncratic style with invented words, wordplay and surreal plots. The best known is L'Écume des jours, published in English as Froth on the Daydream. Under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan he wrote bizarre parodies of crime fiction, which caused a great stir at the time.

Influence

Vian was important for French jazz. In Paris he was the contact for Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, wrote for jazz magazines such as Le Jazz Hot and Paris Jazz, and published many articles about jazz in France and the United States. His own songs were also popular in his lifetime, above all the anti-war song Le Déserteur. Others later sang his lyrics, such as Serge Reggiani and Magali Noël on their own albums. Vian shows how literature, jazz and chanson ran together in post-war Paris.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Le Déserteur and pay attention to the lyrics, which are written in the form of a letter to the president. Notice how simple the melody is, and what that means for the words.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists