Alternate Version of Wish You Were Here

Found this fascinating “alternate” version of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” – featuring a solo from French violinist Stéphane Grappelli – over on Open Culture…

Those of you deeply into both jazz violin and progressive rock no doubt jumped right on the play button above. Quite a few more will listen — so experience has taught me — purely out of interest in anything and everything Pink Floyd has done. But on the level of music history, the track above, a version of the cerebral English rock band’s Pink Floyd’s well-known 1975 song “With You Were Here” prominently featuring a solo from the French “Grandfather of Jazz Violinists” Stéphane Grappelli, should fascinate just about anyone. It speaks to the particular kind of high-profile musical experimentalism that thrived in that era, at least in some quarters — or, rather, in some studios. In this case, the Grappelli and the Floyd boys found themselves recording in adjacent ones. Why would the latter invite the former, already an elder statesman of jazz and a collaborator with the likes of Django Reinhardt, to sit in on a session? (Watch Django and Grappelli play together in the 1938 film, Jazz Hot here.) Well… why not? They needed something impressive to follow Dark Side of the Moon, after all. …

Colin Marshall – Open Culture

Wow! Music history indeed… 😎

I want ice water.

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