He was awarded the Prix Django Reinhardt by the Acad?e du Jazz in 1963. and he appeared, with Dexter Gordon, in Bertrand Tavernier's film Round Midnight (1986). He toured with Gordon and appeared at the Village Vanguard in New York with the guitarist Christian Escoud?ierre Michelot recorded an album of Django Reinhardt's music with Escoud?n 1991. No doubt his playing was supercharged when he worked with Django Reinhardt, a world class master of rhythm.There was a time when the bassist seemed to be on every record that was made in Paris. His skills were so broad that he enhanced the unsophisticated songs of the folk singer Josh White as well as probing into the improvisations of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. In between came work with Lester Young, Zoot Sims, Bud Freeman, Stan Getz, Don Byas, James Moody and Dexter Gordon - and that's only to mention American tenor players. He was in the rhythm section with the pianists Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes, Michel Petrucciani, John Lewis, Lou Levy, Ren?rtreger, Hank Jones and notably with the unrecognised giant Martial Solal.He and Urtreger formed the long-lived trio HUM with the drummer Daniel Humair in 1960.
Although he had an exceptionally fine tone and sense of time it wasn't that he was particularly individualistic. It was simply that if one heard good bass playing on a recording that originated in Europe it was most likely to be by Michelot. This training was to serve him well because, in a Europe where rhythm section players tended to swing like a lead balloon, his work stood out. With this in mind, we can view only with dismay the prospect of a cut to at least 200,000 adult learning places this September, with possibly the same or more to follow next year.Unless these problems are addressed, colleges, which provide among the best chance in Europe of educational success for young people and adults, could find in three years time that the high ranking they have secured in the EU league tables for Britain's lifelong learning participation has been eroded.The writer is Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges. He was drawn to jazz by the playing of two other Ellington musicians, both master bassists, Oscar Pettiford and Jimmie Blanton. Taught piano as a child, Michelot studied classical bass from the age of 16.
No other European jazz musician played with as many of the giants of the music as Pierre Michelot did. By the late Forties he was the best jazz bassist on the Continent and he started at the top by recording separately with four Americans - the ex-Ellington cornettist Rex Stewart (1948), tenor player Coleman Hawkins (1949), drummer Kenny Clarke and soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, also in 1949. Pierre Michelot, double bass player: born St-Denis, France 3 March 1928; died Paris 3 July 2005. As the Lisbon figures show, this country is actually doing much better statistically than our neighbours in the EU in building adult participation in lifelong learning.But even so, the poor legacy of equipping adults with the skills needed for success means that we cannot afford to slacken the drive for improvement. But as Britain's achievement level among 16 to 19-year-olds ranks lower than other EU nations, it is right that this deficit should be addressed.With four out of five members of 2015's labour market already working, the key to competitiveness lies with adults.