Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Music
From organ recitals bathed in Gothic architectural splendour to some of the
world's best rap, music is embedded deep in the Parisian soul. To understand
the capital's musical heritage is to enrich your experience of a city where tal-
ented musicians audition to perform in the metro, and silent movies with little
or no script - simply an extraordinary musical soundtrack - scoop Oscars.
Jazz & French Chansons
Jazz hit Paris in the 1920s with the banana-clad form of Josephine Baker, an African Americ-
an cabaret dancer. In 1934 a chance meeting between Parisian jazz violinist Stéphane Grap-
pelli (1908-97) and three-fingered Roma guitarist Django Reinhardt (1910-53) in a Mont-
parnasse nightclub led to the formation of the Hot Club of France quintet. Claude Luter and
his Dixieland band were hip in the 1950s.
The
chanson française,
a tradition dating from troubadours in the Middle Ages, was ec-
lipsed by the music halls of the early 20th century but was revived in the 1930s by Édith Piaf
(1915-63) and Charles Trenet (1913-2001). In the 1950s Left Bank cabarets nurtured singers
like Léo Ferré (1916-63), Georges Brassens (1921-81), Claude Nougaro (1929-2004),
Jacques Brel (1929-78), Barbara (1930-97) and the very sexy, very Parisian Serge Gains-
bourg (1928-91). The genre was revived in the new millennium as
la nouvelle chanson
française
by performers like Vincent Delerm (b. 1976), Bénabar (b 1969;
www.benabar.com
), Jeanne Cherhal (b. 1978;
www.jeannecherhal.net
)
and Camille (b 1978).
Top Five Albums
Histoire de Melody Nelson,
Serge Gainsbourg
Moon Safari,
AIR
Dante,
Abd al Malik
Bankrupt,
Phoenix
Paris by Night,
Bob Sinclair
