Pop Records

A French rendering of rock 'n' roll sometimes sounds like a musical accompaniment to Jean-Paul Sartre's La Nausee. While U.S. rockers chant wide-eyed changes on adolescent love, requited and otherwise, their French counterparts in the cellars of Saint-Germain-des-Pres are inclined to peer through their existentialist glasses darkly. The most successful of the Parisian rock 'n' rollers is a 31-year-old self-styled gypsy who goes by the name of Mac-Kac (real name: Rene Reilles). A jazz drummer, Mac took to rocking after the U.S. film called Rock Around the Clock (starring Singer Bill Haley) caught the fancy of Parisian teenagers two years ago. Mac sang his way to fame with his gutty-voiced, absinthe-flavored readings of such items as See You Later, Alligator (T'es pas tombe sur la tete), and You Left in Your Bobby Socks (T'es partie en socquettes). Now Atlantic has recorded the best of Mac on an album entitled Mac-Kac and His French Rock & Roll. The familiar beat is there, but the lyrics provide a startling illustration of just how differently they order these things in France. Sample: "The Father Superior with haggard eye and gnashing teeth left the refectory screaming: 'I'll kill the bum who drank all my Communion wine.' He had the tocsin tolled, but nobody found the drunk."

Other pop records:

The Beat of My Heart (Tony Bennett, vocalist; Chico Hamilton, Art Blakey, Jo Jones, Billy Exiner, Candido, Sabu on drums; Columbia). Abetted chiefly by some wonderfully complex naked drum accompaniments, Singer Bennett launches his husky, finely pitched voice into an assortment of old favorites, makes them sound as strange and freshly minted as though they were written yesterday. The nervous, shifty-tempoed title song alone makes this one of the most intriguing vocal albums in months.

Kenny Clarke Plays Andre Hodeir (the Kenny Clarke Sextet; Epic). A low-keyed collection of nine arrangements of modern jazz works (Thelonius Monk's 'Round Midnight, Miles Davis' Swing Spring), plus three original compositions by French Hipster Hodeir, Europe's leading jazz critic-composer (Oblique, On a Riff, Cadenze). The emphasis here is on intricately woven ensemble playing, shot through with some fine flights of "written improvisation."

A Girl and Her Songs (Teddi King; RCA Victor). One of the best singing technicians in the business offers an imaginative tour of love's stormy and placid seasons, in a voice with a fine dramatic range. Teddi's best effort: a refurbished edition of Dorothy Fields's and Jimmy McHugh's Porgy, which here glitters as brightly as Gershwin's more famous exercise on a fellow of the same name.

Songs of Love (Sylvia Syms; Decca). Songstress Syms attacks a few of these throat huskers (He Loves and She Loves, Hands Across the Table) with a beat so limp that she suggests a woman in search of a paycheck instead of a passion. In her better moments (Alone Too Long, Can't We Be Friends?), her foggy, appealing voice is that of a nice girl who is very, very anxious to set her boudoir in order.

Toshiko: Her Trio Her Quartet (Storyville). Japanese Jazz Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi takes off on some fiery lyrical flights in this selection of eight compositions, two of them her own (Salute to Shorty, Pea, Bee and Lee). She is at her best in a couple of high, animated conversations with Alto Saxophonist Boots Mussulli (/'// Remember April, Kelo).

At the Drop of a Hat (Michael Flanders and Donald Swann; Angel). An irreverent, off-key assault on an assortment of sacred cows by the two-man cast of a witty London revue. They warble their uncertain, Oxford-accented way through a series of wandering digressions on the London bus system (A Transport of Delight), the morals of the clubman (Madeira, M'Dear?), the woes of the hi-fi fan ("What do you get? Flutter on your bottom"). They do their best work, Flanders howls, in a snug little house in "an amusing mews," where

We're terribly House & Garden

Now at last we've got the chance.

The garden's full of furniture

The house is full of plants.

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