Claude Bolling Transcriptions

Biography of Claude Bolling

Claude Bolling was a celebrated French jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, renowned as a leading figure in France's traditional jazz revival who gained global fame through his accessible and hugely successful "crossover" compositions fusing jazz with classical music. A lifelong devotee of Duke Ellington, he was a prolific composer of over 100 film scores (most notably for Borsalino) but achieved international breakthrough with his 1975 album Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio, recorded with Jean-Pierre Rampal, which remained on the Billboard classical chart for an unprecedented 530 weeks. He continued this successful formula in a series of acclaimed collaborations with classical soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Pinchas Zukerman, and Maurice André, making him one of the most popular European jazz musicians of his generation .