Raymond Fol

In partnership with his sibling Hubert, the French pianist Raymond Fol left a lasting mark on European jazz throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Between 1945 and 1947 he performed traditional jazz alongside his brother and Boris Vian. The pair next spent two years in the Be Bop Minstrels; once that engagement ended, Raymond Fol joined forces first with Jean-Claude Fohrenbach and subsequently with Django Reinhardt, remaining with the latter from 1949 through 1951. The following year he cut a recording with Reinhardt. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he also appeared on sessions and in performance with Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Dizzy Gillespie, Sidney Bechet, Guy Lafitte, and Stéphane Grappelli. In 1952 he accompanied Gillespie on a European tour. Fol spent 1958 working in Rome and, in 1961, led a trio at Paris’s Mars Club while sometimes switching to celesta. He appeared as guest soloist with the Ellington orchestra in both 1969 and 1974, and he collaborated with Ellingtonians Paul Gonsalves in 1970 and Cat Anderson in 1977.