Michel Legrand

• Genre: Orchestral Scores
• Hometown: Paris
• Michel Legrand Website

About

Remember that cousin you always hated as a kid? He was out winning football games, spelling bees, and building five-room treehouses while you just tried to figure out how to put your Micronauts together. Well, that cousin is Michel Legrand (he's not a girl, he's French). Legrand has recorded jazz with Miles Davis, Coltrane, and Sarah Vaughan. Besides releasing a never-ending string of easy listening and jazz piano albums, Legrand's won Academy Awards for both his film scores and his own songs (he's probably written most of the modern jazz standards of the rock age). If that wasn't enough, Legrand is also a whiz at the piano, be it jazz or classical. Thankfully, he hasn't been pictured in Paris Match cuddling up poolside to a sunbathing Princess Stephanie or we'd really have to hate him. Cousin Legrand is one talented wee bugger and an international treasure.

- Nick Dedina