Beat the January Blues with Paris Combo at City Winery-Chicago

The post-holiday weeks can be a challenge to even the hardiest of Chicagoans.  Readjusting back into your “normal” schedule, somehow hampered by a few extra pounds that appeared from nowhere can be a challenge.  Add in the chill of the January wind and it makes you want to stay home and hibernate until the annual call for the pitchers and catchers. 

Cruel as Chicago’s winters can be, the City offers surprise treats to those who dare to search for them.  How about City Winery, the unique and intimate facility in the West Loop that pairs delicious foods and wines with fantastic live music.  There are few better pairings to City Winery’s gastronomical offerings than Paris Combo, an eclectic musical group based in Paris France.  The musically devious Parisians will be showcasing songs from their latest studio release, Tako Tsubo, as well as favorites from their previous six albums.  Paris Combo brings their 2019 U.S. Tour to City Winery for one night only, on Thursday, January 17, 2019.  The show will begin at 8:00 pm.

Paris Combo was formed in 1995 in Paris.  The group is known for its eclectic style, blending elements from traditional French chanson and pop, American Jazz and swing, Roma music, and North African music. They named the band after the name of the jazz bands of the 1930’s (combo) and the French capital. 

Six albums and two decades crossing the globe playing to enthusiastic audiences from Sydney to San Francisco, and Berlin to Beijing, have enabled Paris Combo to create a unique, cosmopolitan sound, establishing the band as one of the most piquant, intriguing groups on the international music scene. Fronted by the chanteuse vocals of Belle du Berry, the combo has struck a chord with critics and audiences alike with their fun-loving mix of musical styles.  The 2019 U.S. tour line up also includes founder-members the Django-influenced guitarist Potzi, Australian-born trumpeter & pianist David Lewis, drummer-crooner Francois Jeannin, as well as virtuoso bassist, Benoit Dunoyer de Segonzac. 

With hints of Django Reinhardt, Dixieland Jazz, and French pop songs from the 1930’s, mixed together with World Beat and Tropical Fusion, Paris Combo has a knack for making the old new again.  The Boston Herald described the group music “Paris Combo has fired the imagination of anyone ho likes their music cool, itty, and more than a little mysterious.”

Great wine, awesome food, and eclectic music that makes you ant to get up and dance – what better way to push aside those post-holiday blues.  To learn more about Paris Combo and their music, visit www.pariscombo.com.  For tickets to their January 17, 2019 show at City Winery-Chicago, visit www.citywinerychicago.ticketoffices.com/ParisCombo

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

With The Wrong Kind of Women, Naomi McDougall Jones Makes the Case for Gender Parity in the Film Industry

Image
The day the nominations for the 2020 Academy Awards were announced was a frustrating time for Naomi McDougall Jones.   The actor, screenwriter, and award-winning independent filmmaker (Imagine I’m Beautiful (2014), Bite Me (2019)) has long been an advocate for gender parity in the film industry.   Her TEDTalk, What It’s Like to be a Woman in Hollywood, has been viewed over one million times.   Jones was disappointed, but not surprised, that not one woman was nominated in the Best Director Category.   “The all-male directors nomination knocked the wind out of even me,” Jones says.   “The fact that the top four nominated films are so blatantly, not only by and about white men, but they read like a bad punchline to a joke.   It’s unbelievable.”   In the 92-year history of the Academy Awards, only five women have been nominated for Best Director.   Only one, Kathryn Bigelow has won (Hurt Locker). Despite her frustration, Jones is conti...
Read more

Music, Puppetry, and Self-Help Warm Up Audiences at Davenport's Piano Bar & Cabaret

Image
  The tinkle of ice as bartenders create cocktails while Cole Porter’s music plays over the sound system soon make the snow and cold of another Chicago winter a distant memory as people entered the doors of Davenport’s Piano Bar & Cabaret.   The occasion was the return of singer, actor, comedian, and writer, Jackie Smook, and her pianist, Joey Chimes, for a six-month engagement of The Jackie Smook Program of De-Dumbification .   Drink orders are placed (“a Bombay gin martini, please…shaken hard, not stirred”) as audience members and performers alike look forward to a night of live music, puppetry, and self-help. Smook and Chimes take the audience on a magical, puppet-filled, comedic (yet moving) ride into the Jackie Smook self-help cabaret.   It’s a roller coaster through her personal journey from a “dingy dongy dumb dumb” to the hard-working, go getting, ambitious woman she is today.   Told through four stages and 12 musical acts, audiences will be moved ...
Read more

WHERE WE BELONG at Goodman Theatre Makes Strong Emotional Connection

Image
  The land along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, now known as Chicago , has been a gathering place for Native people for thousands of years.   People travelled long distances to trade, socialize, and share stories.   The latest of these visiting storytellers is Mohegan theater-maker Madeline Sayet.   A member of the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut, Sayet was raised on a combination of traditional Mohegan stories and Shakespeare, both of which have influenced her work as a stage director, writer, and actor of new plays, classics, and opera.   After a drink of water as she steps on to the stage, Sayet opens with an acknowledgement of the peoples who have historically lived on the lands where the theatre sits and is currently called home by one of the largest urban Indian populations in the country.   As she shares her story with passion, emotion, and humor, this modern Mohegan storyteller is a welcome guest. Madeline Sayet in Where We Belong Photo by Liz L...
Read more