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Take Two Strasbourg / St Denis
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The jazz standard Strasbourg / St Denis was composed by the late trumpeter and flugelhorn player Roy Hargrove who passed through the Departure Lounge in 2018 at the age of 49. He had struggled with kidney failure for years and despite having dialysis for many of them, the disease finally brought on cardiac arrest in November of that year.
It is a really catchy tune with 'call and response' elements and as one person on YouTube says: "Legend has it the audience is still clapping offbeat to this day".
This is a great video of the Roy Hargrove Quintet playing Strasbourg / St Denis in Brussels (I found that the first viewing it was interrupted by an advertisement that you have to skip, but not in subsequent playing, it is worth sticking with it either way). Another YouTube commentator says: "The bassist can make a simple bassline sound spectacular. The pianist makes you want to get up and dance. The drummer instills a ton of energy into his playing. And about Roy... no words are needed, really. A simply magnificent performance which captures the very essence of jazz. Every time I'm watching this it feels like it's the first time."
Another videod performance by a different Quintet line up is in two parts. It doesn't have the same introduction but this one is really worth watching. I prefer it for the solos and we can see what a fine trumpet player Roy Hargrove was: - here is Part One.
Strasbourg - St Denis is a station on Line 4, Line 8 and Line 9 of the Paris Métro. Opened in 1908 under the name Boulevard Saint-Denis, it took its current name in 1931, which refers to Rue Saint-Denis and the Boulevard de Strasbourg. The station of Line 4 is located under the Boulevard de Strasbourg while the stations of Lines 8 and 9 are located under the Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle. These last two lines cross Line 4 perpendicularly and from below. Line 8 is on the higher level and Line 9 in the lower level. Perhaps the composition reflects these different intersections musically.
....and so to our 'second take'. This one is a version of Strasbourg / St Denis by saxophonist Candy Dulfer and features the flugelhorn of Jan Van Duikeren. Beautifully recorded, the video is from a concert in 2009 at an annual jazz festival at Leverkusen, a city in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany:
Candy Dulfer is the daughter of Dutch jazz saxophonist Hans Dulfer. She began playing at the age of six and founded her band Funky Stuff when she was fourteen. Her debut album Saxuality (1990) received a Grammy nomination.
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