Todd Bishop's Pop Art 4 - home
Our CD, 69 Année Érotique is now available through any record store or online music service, or you can order it through this site for $15 per CD, with FREE shipping.
Buy it now with PayPal, or call (503)380-9259!
"...a beautiful tribute to that singular talent [Gainsbourg] and, live, it is even more entrancing."
- Pamplemoose.com
Pop Art 4 is a new project by Portland, OR drummer Todd Bishop. We've assembled some of the most powerful and distinctive voices in jazz in the US Pacific Northwest for a series of recordings beginning with 69 Année Érotique, a new Origin CD of instrumental jazz interpretations of the music of French pop icon Serge Gainsbourg. The album features many of Gainsbourg's most famous numbers, including " Je t'aime... moi non plus", "Bonnie & Clyde", and "Ballade de Melody Nelson."
Drummer, producer and bandleader Todd Bishop, with a number of experimental, cinema-inspired CD releases to his credit, has been a unique artistic presence on the Northwest jazz scene since the mid-1990's.
Todd Bishop's Pop Art 4 is dedicated to exploring commercial music of the 1960's and '70's, music normally considered to be somewhat defiant to jazz reinterpretation. The band of Seattle musicians includes saxophonist Rich Cole (Dr. John, Randy Brecker, Dave Holland), keyboardist Steve Moore (aka Stebmo- Bill Frisell, Sufjan Stevens), and bassist Geoff Harper (Wayne Horvitz, Skerik). They will be appearing throughout the region in promotion of the album through the summer of 2009, and will be touring France/Benelux in late 2009. See our calendar page for details, or sign up for our mailing list for instant updates.
This is the first CD in a series to include: "Oh!" More French Pop, free interpretations of the music from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, and the monumental Dirty Harry soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin. Also in development is a CD of original material, Candy.
Serge Gainsbourg
Songwriter and lyricist Serge Gainsbourg (1928-91) was a controversial but ultimately triumphant figure in French popular culture. A kind of Gallic hybrid of Leonard Cohen, Neil Diamond and Charles Bukowski, his lyrics featured existential, erotic and surrealist themes. Musically, his work spanned a swathe of genres including French chanson, jazz, rock, reggae and techno. His influence outside of France has been until recently largely limited to the 1969 hit "Je t'aime, moi non plus", which topped the charts and was instantly banned by the Vatican and several governments due to its risqué content. Since his death, he has gained a cult following in the U.S. and U.K., and artists such as Beck, Stereolab, Portishead, and others have recorded his material. Serge Gainsbourg on Wikipedia.