Julien-François Zbinden (b.1917)

Julien-François Zbinden was a great improviser on the piano and accompanist to international vedettes. Zbinden was a pupil in Lausanne of pianist Marie Panthès and later of his friend René Gerber. From the moment of his coup de foudre, at the age of 15, with jazz music, his career was divided: he continued to compose classical music, influenced by the aesthetics of Stravinsky, Ravel and Honegger, but at the same time continued to work as a jazz improviser, as a ‘bar pianist’ (according to his definition) and later as a pianist and producer for the Lausanne radio station.