St. Germain – Rose Rouge

No I haven’t aged 20 years or beamed in from a parallel nu-jazz blog universe run by saxhugger but I do find this track utterly hypnotic. From about 12 seconds in you get the drift but my do you want that drift to roll on forever, and in many ways it does. The piece is from an album called ‘Tourist’ by French artist Ludovic Navarre who releases his work as St. Germain. It was quite the favourite amongst the hipsters on its release in 2000 and it’s easy to see why. Jazz for the unwashed masses. ‘Rose Rouge’ contains a vocal sample from a 1973 live version of Marlena Shaw’s ‘Woman of the Ghetto’ and is pivotal to the direction of the piece. Much of the attraction of course is that the tune is at right angles to what we usually listen to but it does prove that we must extend our knowledge of jazz beyond the soundtrack to ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’. KD

St. Germain – Rose Rouge

More Info: Wiki
Buy Songs: St. Germain
Year: 2000

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2 Comments

  1. Sonny
    February 8, 2011
    Reply

    Odd – this is the one track from that album that I can’t listen to because I find the vocal sample irritating and intrusive. Spoils what might otherwise have been a good song. The rest of the album is excellent. I still listen to it now.

    Sonny

  2. hugger
    February 8, 2011
    Reply

    Get ya Sonny, think it works better in isolation away from the other tracks.

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