In a career that spans more than a half century, pianist and composer Jacques Loussier has built an enormous body of  work by blurring the lines between classical and jazz and selling more than six million albums worldwide in the process. Telarc celebrates Loussier’s 80th birthday (on 26 October 2014) with the release of two collections that provide a cross section of his masterful fusion of classical tradition with the jazz idiom.

‘My Personal Favorites: The Jacques Loussier Trio Plays Bach’ and ‘Beyond Bach: Other Composers I Adore’ are two specially priced 2CD sets, each with tracks chosen by Loussier himself as personal favourites. Beginning in 1959 with his Play Bach Trio, and later with alternate lineups that explored numerous other classical artists, Loussier and his various collaborators forced musicians and audiences of both jazz and classical music to reevaluate the boundaries - and indeed the similarities - between their respective genres.

The Bach collection principally features the trio that Loussier formed in 1985. “His personal selection of pieces from his  Bach repertoire looks back on the one hand to his earliest triumphs, but also shows how the trio has developed and responded to the music over time,” says jazz historian Alyn Shipton, author of the liner notes for both collections.

Personnel: Jacques Loussier (piano), Vincent Charbonnier, Benoit Dunoyer de Segonzac (bass), André Arpino (drums)

Disc 1:
1. Air on a G String
2. Fugue No. 5 in D major
3. Pastorale in C minor
4. Prelude No. 1 in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier
5. Toccata and Fugue in D minor
6. Italian Concerto: Allegro
7. Italian Concerto: Andante
8. Italian Concerto: Presto
9. Partita in E major
10. Chorale No. 1 Sleepers Awake
11. Toccata and Fugue in C major: Overture
12. Toccata and Fugue in C major: Adagio
13. Toccata and Fugue in C major: Fugue

Disc 2:
1. Siciliana in G minor
2. Concerto in C minor: Allegro
3. Little Fugue in G minor
4. Concerto in F minor: Allegro
5. Concerto in F minor: Largo
6. Concerto in F minor: Presto
7. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
8. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major: Allegro
9. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major: Affettuoso
10. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major: Allegro
11. Goldberg Variations: Aria
12. Goldberg Variations: Variation 2
13. Goldberg Variations: Variation 5
14. Goldberg Variations: Variation 25