Scene from “The Wild Planet”
Photo: UIG via Getty Images, Marka. All rights reserved.
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The French jazz pianist, composer and arranger Alain Yves Réginald Goraguer is dead. He died in Paris on February 13 at the age of 91.
With the dazzling art-jazz score for “The Fantastic Planet” (also: The Wild Planet), he made a significant contribution to the idiosyncratic atmosphere of René Laloux’s classic animated film. Both the film and the soundtrack achieved cult status. During his career, he wrote music for a number of films, but mostly stayed true to television. In Germany, many of his title melodies for “I’m marrying a family” and “A home for animals” should still be in their ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vXkI1zYyDo
Goraguer, born on August 20, 1931 in Rosny-sous-Bois and raised in Nice, was successful, but above all as an arranger. His talent as a piano player with a jazz influence came in handy. After a concert in a club in Saint-Germain-des-Prés he met Boris Vian. The encounter took Goraguer’s career in a different direction. He collaborated on a number of chansons with Vian (including “Je Bois” and “Ne vous mariez pas les filles”). The path to film also led via Vian, whose filmed novel “I will spit on your pride” Goraguer set to music in 1959. Already here his feel for irritating jazz melodies came to the fore.
After commissioned work for singer and jazz guitarist Henri Salvador (under the name of Hernry Cording), Goraguer arranged the album Gainsbourg percussions (1964) for Serge Gainsbourg. For his piece “Poupée de cire, poupée de son”, sung by France Gall, he took over the instrumentation. The song won the 1956 Eurovision Song Contest. He made further arrangements for Juliette Gréco, Nana Mouskouri and Udo Jürgens (“The Music Played”, 1969).
During his lifetime he only released one album as a jazz musician: “Go Go Goraguer” from 1956. The compilation “Le Monde Instrumental D’Alain Goraguer: Jazz Et Musiques De Films”.
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