Debussy... and jazz

A century after his death on 25 March 1918, many harmonia mundi artists are eager to pay tribute to Claude Debussy, the magician of melody and timbre, the great ‘colourist’ and father of modern music. We also wished to honour the composer of Pelléas as one of those creative artists who, long before Louis Armstrong and Bill Evans, had a determining influence on certain harmonic colours of jazz. Let us therefore salute the initiative of the appropriately named Quatuor Debussy, which, with the friendly collaboration of leading jazz personalities, has revisited the Préludes in its own way. And at the end of the work, what title would Debussy have inscribed? ‘… note bleue’?