Music by Michel Herr
Featuring Archie Shepp
Tracks :
1. Just Friends (Klenner, Lewis)
2. Song for Lucy (Quartet version) (Michel Herr)
3. Something of Me (Michel Herr)
4. Perdido (Juan Tizol, composer / Michel Herr, arranger)
5. Jeff's Funeral (Michel Herr)
6. Club Groove (Michel Herr)
7. Besame Mucho (Consuelo Velasquez)
8. Cherokee (Ray Noble)
9. Song for Lucy (Quartet version)(Michel Herr)
10.
Bass boom (double bass choir) (Michel Herr)
11. Marche Funèbre (F. Chopin)
12. Black Rose Stomp (Michel Herr)
13. Song for Lucy (Big band version, final theme song) (Michel Herr)
14. Medicine (Michel Herr)
15. Something of me (Michel Herr)
16. Good Guess (Michel Herr)
17. Cri (Archie Shepp)
18. Jeff's funeral (version with Archie Shepp) (Michel Herr)
19. Song for Lucy (solo piano version) (Michel Herr)
Musicians :
Archie Shepp - tenor saxophone
Michel Herr - piano, composer, arranger, musical director
Silvia Droste - Vocals
Riccardo Del Fra - double bass
John Engels - drums
Eric Verhaeghe, Edmond Harnie, Nic Fissette, Richard Rousselet - trumpets
Phil Abraham, Marc Godfroid, Claude Remacle - trombones
Jan De Backer - bass trombone
Michel Massot - tubas
Peter Vandendriessche - alto saxophone, clarinet
Frank Vaganée - alto saxophone
Pierre Vaiana - soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
Kurt Van Herck - tenor saxophone
Johan Vandendriessche - baritone saxophone
Jeanfrançois Prins - guitar
Philippe Aerts - double bass
Jean-Louis Rassinfosse - double bass
Jan De Haas - drums
Released 1993, CD (AMC 50.047) + CD single (AMC 19.026).
Reissued around 2004 in Hong Kong (see the other cover).
See also some photos of Archie Shepp and the musicians.
for Song for Lucy (Michel Herr / lead sheets, pdf).
The original soundtrack of the Belgian movie Just friends (1993), by film director Marc-Henri Wajnberg, composed and arranged by Michel Herr, featuring US saxophonist Archie Shepp.
- The movie received no less than 12 awards. It is the story, during the fifties, of Jack, a talented Belgian tenor sax player who dreams of a career in the US. Although the main character was inspired by the figure of the late Antwerp saxophonist Jack Sels, the story is pure fiction.
"Just Friends" is a movie filled with jazz sounds, an emotional trip through the feelings of friendship and love as well as through the hard sides of the music scene and the difficulties of being an artist, an innovator in Belgium.
Michel Herr, besides the famous American saxophonist Archie Shepp, called upon top European and Belgian jazz players to give this soundtrack an authentic jazz flavour, with musical compositions ranging from the solo to the big band.
The press / La presse
"Excellent disque"
Jean-Marie Hacquier, Jazz Hot no 519.