Ollie Fury, who founded the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance, has moved to Berlin and hence has not run the most successful recent open mic in Paris for several weeks. The job at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar has now been taken over by his friend, Ollie Joe…. So if the names are similar, so is the open mic. It was quite a success last night, my first return in a few weeks. A number of the regulars were there, but there were some very interesting new acts, like the American-born Nigeria-raised KUKU, who returned to the U.S. to live many years ago. He is living for a while in Paris, and attending open mics. One of the high points of the evening was when KUKU and Ilan, of Israel, did an impromptu jam, that came out like a real bona fide “world music” vibe.
There was a very nice instrumental by Chardes and Nicolas, and Fabien Fabre presented one of his hit songs about a town in Essex, England.
I am in one of my perpetual rushes, so I cannot write that much more about the evening, and will let the videos do the talking. Unfortunately it is so dark in the bar where the open mic takes place that lighting is always a problem for the videos, and even worse, I was sitting in such a position last night that I had glare off the only light near the performance area.