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Organist Eddy Louiss died on June 30 in a Paris hospital. He was 74. His long career included widely praised albums with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and pianist Michel Petrucciani. Louiss became an organist when he was a member of the vocal group The Double Six Of Paris in the early 1960s. He quickly developed into a virtuoso on the instrument and won the Prix Django Reinhardt of the Academie du Jazz in 1964. Louiss had a long struggle with circulatory problems that led to the amputation of a leg in the early 1990s. He continued, nonetheless, to appear in clubs and at festivals, including “Jazz sous les Pommiers,” (“Jazz Under the Apple Treesâ€) in Coutances in northwestern France, in 2011.
The band he led at Coutances was called Le Multicolor Feeling Orchestra. It included a cello section and what may have been half the horn players in Europe. Besides Louiss, the featured soloists are Jean-Michel Charbonel, bass; Jean-Marie Ecay, guitar; Xavier Cobo, tenor saxophone; Daniel Huck, alto saxophone; and Francis Arnaud, drums. This video—admirably produced, directed and photographed—runs nearly an hour. You may want to pour yourself a large calvados before you settle in with it. The video quality justifies watching full-screen.
Eddie Louiss, RIP