French jazz pianist who loved to improvise and wrote the score for Jean-Luc Godard’s film A Bout de Souffle

A squint through the metal fence around Martial Solal’s tree-shrouded villa, in Chatou, the suburb of Paris known as the “ville des impressionistes”, could have confirmed that the great French pianist was not the average jazz musician. Solal, who has died aged 97, was the most famous jazz musician in France from the 1950s onwards, and widely known across Europe and the US.

The breakthrough that paid for that Chatou villa came when Solal – then a little-known club pianist – wrote the score for Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film A Bout de Souffle (Breathless). The commission came out of the blue via Godard’s jazz-loving friend and fellow director Jean-Pierre Melville, and Solal collected royalties on it for ever after. “It’s like I won the Lotto,” he told me in 2010. “Because back in 1959 when I did it, I was mainly just known for being the house pianist in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés jazz club.” Godard had few ideas about the music he wanted, beyond joking to Solal that he might compose a piece for a banjo player, to save money. The pianist promptly produced a soundtrack for big band and 30 violins.