Martial Solal
Martial Solal (23 August 1927 – 12 December 2024) was a French jazz pianist and composer.
Also recorded as Martial Solal Dodecaband · Martial Saoul Cohen-Solal
Martial Solal

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Born
- 1927. · Algiers.
- Died
- 2024. · Versailles.
- Nationality
- France.
- Occupation
- conductor, composer, musician and pianist.
- Fields
- piano performance, composed musical work, jazz and music composition.
- Honours
- Paul Acket Award, Prix Django Reinhardt, Grand Prix du Disque, Jazzpar Prize, grand prix de l'Académie du jazz and Knight of the Legion of Honour.
- Languages
- French.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Martial Solal (23 August 1927 – 12 December 2024) was a French jazz pianist and composer.
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Note VALÉORINE
Martial Solal (1927–2024) was a French composer, conductor and film score composer, among other activities. The composer was born Martial Saul Cohen-Solal in Algiers.
Martial Solal was a member of Martial Solal Quartet and Martial Solal Trio and worked in Algiers. The composer was active in composed musical work, jazz and music composition.
Genres include jazz. Languages used include French. Martial Solal received Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, grand prix de l'Académie du jazz and Grand Prix du Disque, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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wikidata · Q1317748 · wikipedia · Martial Solal
In this article
Life and career
Life and career
Claudia Solal and Manuel Rocheman are recorded as having studied under Martial Solal. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is piano performance, composed musical work and jazz. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are jazz. Places of work recorded in the authority are Algiers. Distinctions recorded are Paul Acket Award, Prix Django Reinhardt, Grand Prix du Disque and Jazzpar Prize.
Solal was born in Algiers, French Algeria on 23 August 1927, to Algerian Jewish parents. He was persuaded to study clarinet, saxophone, and piano by his mother, who was an opera singer. He was expelled from school in 1942 because of his parents' Jewish ancestry (Algeria was a French colony, and the Vichy regime in France was following Nazi policies). Solal educated himself after having studied classical music in school. He imitated music he heard on the radio. When he was 15, he performed publicly for United States Army audiences. After settling in Paris in 1950, he began working with Django Reinhardt and U.S. expatriates such as Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He formed a quartet (occasionally also leading a big band) in the late 1950s, although he had been recording as a leader since 1953. Solal then began composing film music, eventually providing over 20 scores. He composed music for Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature film Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960). In 1963, he made an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island; the Newport '63 album purporting to be a recording of this gig is actually a studio recreation with overdubbed applause, as documented in the sleeve notes of some later reissues. At this time, his trio included bassist Guy Pedersen and drummer Daniel Humair. From 1968, he performed and recorded with Lee Konitz in Europe and the U.S. In its January 2011 issue, The Gruppen Review published a 12-page interview in which Solal discusses his work as an eternal "researcher in jazz". Solal died in Versailles, Yvelines on 12 December 2024, at the age of 97.
Style
Style
• Illustration — 1988 His jazz approach was once described by Jean-Pierre Thiollet as "brilliant, unique and intellectual" He has said of his technique: "You have to make people believe that it's very easy, even when it's very difficult. If you look to have trouble with the technique, it is no good. You must play the most difficult thing like this."
Leader
Leader
• 1954: French Modern Sounds (Swing/Disques Vogue) • 1954: Martial Solal Trio (Disques Vogue) • 1959: Suite en ré bémol pour quartette de jazz (Columbia) (7") • 1960: Martial Solal (Columbia; US release by Capitol) • 1962: Jazz à Gaveau (Columbia); US release as In Concert/Trio in Concert (Liberty, 1963) • 1962: Suite pour une frise (Pathé-Marconi) • 1963: At Newport '63 (Martial Solal album) (RCA) • 1963: Martial Solal and the European All Stars (Telefunken; Canada release by London) • 1964: Concert à Gaveau vol. 2 (Columbia) • 1965: Martial Solal "Trio" (Columbia) • 1965: En Liberte (Columbia) (with Gilbert Rovere and Charles Bellonzi) • 1965: Son 66 (Columbia) • 1966: En Direct Du Blue Note (Columbia; US release in 1969 as On Home Ground by Milestone) • 1970: Locomotion (PSI, imprint of Musique Pour L'Image) (with Henry Texier and Bernard Lubat) • 1970: Sans tambour ni trompette (Martial Solal album) (RCA Victor) • 1975: 7 + 4 = X (PDU) • 1975: Nothing but Piano (MPS) • 1978: Suite for Trio (Universal) • 1981: Big Band (Universal) • 1983: Bluesine (Soul Note) • 1984: Big Band (Dreyfus Jazz) • 1984: Plays Hodeir (OMDCD) • 1991: Triptyque (Adda) • 1991: Duo in Paris (Dreyfus Jazz) • 1995: Triangle (Martial Solal album) (JMS) • 1996: Difficult Blues (John Marks Records) • 1997: Just Friends (Martial Solal album) (Dreyfus) • 1998: Silent Cinema – Cinema Muet (Gorgone) • 1998: Martial Solal, Vol. 2 (Vogue) • 1999: Balade du 10 mars (Soul Note) • 1999: En Solo (Fresh Sound) • 1999: Contrastes (Martial Solal album) (Storyville) • 2000: Martial Solal Dodecaband Plays Ellington (Dreyfus Jazz) • 2003: NY-1: Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note) • 2007: Exposition sans tableau (Nocturne) • 2007: Solitude (Martial Solal album) (CAM Jazz) • 2008: Longitude (Martial Solal album) (CAM Jazz) • 2009: Live at the Village Vanguard (Martial Solal album) (CAM Jazz) • 2015: Martial Solal - Works for Piano and Two Pianos (Grand Piano) • 2018: Histoires improvisées (paroles et musiques) (JMS) • 2018: My One and Only Love (Martial Solal album) (Intuition Records) • 2021: Coming Yesterday: Live at Salle Gaveau 2019 (Challenge records)
Co-leader
Co-leader
• 1957: When a Soprano Meets a Piano with Sidney Bechet (Inner City) • 1965: Zoller Koller Solal with Attila Zoller and Hans Koller (MPS) • 1968: European Episode with Lee Konitz (Campi) • 1968: Impressive Rome with Lee Konitz (Campi) • 1968: Électrode: Martial Solal joue Michel Magne (Ducretet Thomson) • 1976: Movability (Martial Solal album) with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (MPS) • 1977: Duplicity with Lee Konitz (Horo) • 1979: Four Keys (MPS) • 1980: Live at the Berlin Jazz Days 1980 with Lee Konitz (MPS) • 1980: Happy Reunion (Stéphane Grappelli and Martial Solal album) with Stéphane Grappelli (Sunnyside) • 1983: Star Eyes, Hamburg 1983 with Lee Konitz (HatOLOGY) • 1988: 9/11 p.m. Town Hall (Label Bleu) • 1992: Martial Solal & Toots Thielemans (Erato) • 1999: Fast Mood with Michel Portal (BMG France) • 2000: In and Out (Solal and Griffin album) with Johnny Griffin (Dreyfus Jazz) • 2000: Portrait in Black and White (Solal and Le Lann album) with Éric Le Lann (Nocturne, H&L) • 2006: Portrait in Black and White (Solal and Douglas album) with Dave Douglas (CAM Jazz) • 2017: Masters in Bordeaux (Solal and Liebman album), with Dave Liebman (Sunnyside) • 2020: Masters in Paris (Solal and Liebman album), with Dave Liebman (Sunnyside)
Sideman
Sideman
• 1974: Jazz à Juan (SteepleChase) • 2005: Comptines Pour Enfants Seulement (Doumtak)
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
2024
Martial Solal died at Versailles.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Algiers.
Birth place
Versailles.
Death place
References ==== External links
References ==== External links
• A Portrait of Martial Solal: Verbunkos. Retrieved 9 February 2013 * • Martial Solal • Martial Solal unreleased recordings, including Robert Kaddouch - Gruppen review • Martial Solal recording at Murecstudio Milan murec studio la storia

Martial Solal, Solal
Wikimedia Commons

Wolfgang Bleibel mit Martial Solal (Paris, Mai 2013)
Vampirjäger
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Colin Larkin. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Guinness Publishing. 2319. 1992. 0-85112-939-0.
- 2.arwulf, arwulf. Martial Solal. AllMusic.
- 3.Martial Solal – at Newport '63 (1994, CD). Discogs.com. 1994.
- 4.Gruppen n°2. GRUPPEN.
- 5.Décès du pianiste Martial Solal, grand nom du jazz, à 97 ans
- 6.88 notes pour piano solo, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Neva Editions, 2015, p. 357.
- 7.(Martial Solal interviewed by Larry Appelbaum just before his concert at the Library of Congress, 11 April 2011).
- 8.Martial Solal Album Discography AllMusic. AllMusic.
References
Citations
References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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