Inspired by a vacation visit last week to the beautiful, lakefront town of Gérardmer in northeastern France, for this week’s ‘Pick’ I’ve selected this lovely version of George Gershwin’s Our Love is Here to Stay, performed by one of my favorite French guitarists, Christine Petit-D’heilly, originally from Paris, but currently living and working in Gérardmer. I first heard her on her excellent 2016 album of South American pieces called Contatos. Besides being a fine solo guitarist, however, Christine also plays in a number of chamber configurations, such as Trio Gershwin (currently Petit-D’heilly plus Jean-Noël Ruhl on piano and Benoît Charvet on cello) and the Quator Barrios Mangore (guitarists Petit-D’heilly, Gérard Verba, Adrien Maza, along with José Mendoza on guitar, charango, cuatro, and percussion).
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I could easily imagine this arrangement of the Gershwin brothers’ classic song—music by George, lyrics by Ira; originally for the 1938 movie The Goldwyn Follies, but popularized (appropriately for our purposes here) in the 1951 Gene Kelly film An American in Paris—coming from the pen of the late Roland Dyens, but it is in fact credited to the Trio Gershwin. A wonderful performance! —Blair Jackson