Paris Combo transported audiences to a Parisian underground jazz club at Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023

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Paris Combo had its beginnings 25 years ago playing in underground bars and on barges on the River Seine in Paris and last night their Adelaide Cabaret Festival performance truly transported us. In an Australian exclusive for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Paris Combo performed their second of three shows at the Dunstan Playhouse last night (Last chance to see them tonight and we strongly recommend you do).

Paris Combo at Adelaide Cabaret Festival — Image: Claudio Raschella

Having tragically lost their beautiful lead singer and songwriter, Belle du Berry in 2020 to cancer soon after having finished recording their last album, Quesaco ? this was a different line up with 4 guest artists taking the microphone. The enchanting, and very charismatic, Carmen Maria Vega may be familiar to some Australian audiences having come to Australia for So Frenchy So Chic in the past. It’s impressive that an injured foot didn’t prevent her from wearing a heel on the other one and that she worked the stage with some particularly impassioned dance moves, especially for Paris Combo’s last encore number.

For guest singers Billie and Aurore Voilqué, this was their first time in Australia and both were excited to be here. While their involvement with Paris Combo is relatively recent, they both have long listened to and appreciated the band and later became good friends with Belle du Berry. For Aurore Voilqué singing was not her only participation, she also played the violin whenever she appeared on stage. The fourth guest singer was Mano Razanajato who performed with Paris Combo back in their early days so is well-versed in their style.

Singing was divided between the various guest singers, whether it be each of them getting a verse such as with the opening song Living Room or each being given a song or two to perform. Each of them brought their own personality to the songs and their dance styles.

Paris Combo has an impressive band featuring Australian David Lewis on trumpet and piano, Francois Jeannin on drums, Potzi on guitar, Benoît Dunoyer de Segonzac on double bass (which Mano borrows from him for one song) and Rémy Kaprielan on saxophone and percussion. The majority also join in on backing vocals and Francois Jeannin and Rémy Kaprielan get their own songs to sing. These are such a talented group of performers that they are not only good at the one or many instruments they play; they sing well too.

The majority of the set performed by Paris Combo at Adelaide Cabaret Festival was of songs well-known to their fans across their back catalogue of albums including their 1999 debut album Living Room. There is no need to speak French to appreciate the music and David Lewis introduces each song with a single sentence summarising the song’s title and chorus.

Paris Combo also performed four songs from their last album, Quesaco ? which they finished recording only a few weeks before Belle’s passing in 2020. Knowing that Belle never got to perform these songs to a live audience makes it even more special seeing them live.

For those unfamiliar with Paris Combo’s music, we highly recommend you have a listen. You can expect a jazzy feel with Latino and sometimes even a Middle-Eastern mood, particularly for their closing number, during which Carmen Maria Vega entranced the audience with her hypnotic arm movements. Paris Combo’s performance last night ran the gamut of styles with singers even rapping in parts of some of the songs.

A beautiful surprise later in the show was a guest performance from Belle du Berry and David Lewis’s daughter Ella. She performed a song which David Lewis explains has an Australian connection being written for David Bradbury called “Notre vie comme un western” (our life like in a Western) with the beautifully haunting refrain:

“ C’est beau quand on s’aimeSi beau quand on s’aime”

(which translates to “it’s beautiful when we love each other,

So beautiful when we love each other”)

The party felt like it had truly started with the final number that Paris Combo performed and David Lewis issued an invitation to dance, which several people took up. It would have been perfect to have Paris Combo extend their performance, but this time in an open space where people could more easily dance the night away, such as the Spiegeltent which is sadly missing from this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Paris Combo’s performance was so good, we are seriously tempted to go back and see them again tonight!