Michel Jean Legrand, born February 24, 1932 in Paris, France made his fame and fortune from writing for films, but he has done significant work in jazz on an occasional basis. In 1957, he arranged a set of dixieland and swing standards for a French orchestra (recorded on Philips), in 1958 he used three different all-star groups for the classic
Legrand Jazz (with such sidemen as
Miles Davis,
John Coltrane,
Phil Woods,
Herbie Mann,
Bill Evans,
Ben Webster,
Art Farmer and others), in 1968 he recorded a strictly jazz set with a trio and Legrand has written for albums led by
Stan Getz (1971),
Sarah Vaughan (1972), and on several occasions, audioscrobbler.com/music/Phil+Woods" class="bbcode_artist">Phil Woods. Several of his songs (such as "
What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life", "
Watch What Happens" and "
The Summer Knows") have been recorded many times by jazz musicians.
