About ten years ago, Charles Aznavour let it be understood that he was ready to say goodbye, and then promptly changed the idea into a gradual slowdown. After all those years spent racing round the planet’s venues and recording studios, he started by giving up recitals in foreign languages, then major French tours, and then the immense, familiar Palais des Congrès. His end-of-summer sensation this year will see him perform at the Olympia from 7 September, almost coinciding with the release of his new album, Aznavour toujours. The rhythm has hardly changed, given that his previous record, Charles Aznavour & the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, dates from late 2009.

Va Charles Aznavour Aznavour Toujours (EMI) 2011 Listen

In Aznavour toujours, he shows his talents for writing and composing, and sings in a classic style reminiscent of the major hits that made him into an absolute reference of French song following the revolutionary years of 1950-60. The familiar ample vocals are there, of course, like when he magnanimously allows the woman whose love is dying to leave (in Va); there are lyrics that promise to "bring about days that resemble nights”; his unique ability to sum up human existence in La vie est faite de hasards (life is all about chance) or in Les Jours; and there is his particular talent for writing songs that paint all the images of love with a mix of psychological truth and crude eroticism (in Que j’aime j’aime ça). This is the Aznavour who sings of the eternity of the couple, or who sometimes fixes his camera on a place or an instant of French history, like in Ce printemps-là, a love song set in that period like none other, May 68.

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Most of the arrangements and production of Aznavour toujours were shared by two masters from different generations: the Brazilian Eumir Deodata, who has five hundred albums to his name (including the likes of Frank Sinatra, Astrud Gilberto, Björk, Christophe and Aretha Franklin) and the Frenchman Yvan Cassar (Mylène Farmer, Johnny Hallyday, Claude Nougaro, Roberto Alagna, etc.). Neither had any difficulty in putting together a dream cast, since few musicians are able to resist the pleasure of working for Mr Aznavour: the pianist Jacky Terrasson on five tracks, the bass players Laurent Vernerey and Jean-Claude Ghrenassia, drummer Loïc Ponthieux, accordion player Lionel Suarez, guitarist Pedro Xavier Gonzales and even Thomas Dutronc, who does the vocals and guitar work on Elle, a particularly Aznavour-style love song.

Doe that mean that Aznavour toujours has followed a familiar Aznavour recipe? Not at all. At over eighty, the master of French song is still capable of making some original and amazingly powerful gestures. Like with J’ai connu, an impassioned, happy-sounding song that Yvan Cassar has arranged and produced in a totally danceable way: a kind of never-ending gypsy ball, even though the lyrics are about the genocides and mass crimes that have made recent centuries of human history so bloody. The chorus repeats, set to a joyful melody: “What man does to man/Animals no longer do.” That Aznavour toujours is more like Aznavour like never before.

Charles Aznavour Aznavour toujours (EMI) 2011
Playing live at the Olympia, Paris, from 7 September 2011