Brad Spurgeon's Blog

I braved the continued freezing temperatures in Paris last night to go first to the Cariatides bar/venue to see Marianne BP do her concert before the jam session organized by Doréa SisDee, which is called “We Jam.” The thing is, I knew that no matter how freezing cold I was, Marianne’s performance would heat up my body and spirit. And I was NOT let down. It was a fabulously inventive, creative and sexy show that Marianne BP put on singing and speaking and chanting her texts to the sounds created by Thomas Kpade on the cello and bass and computer….

In fact, Marianne BP – whom I once backed on a song playing guitar to her singing at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance – was sooooo hot, that I knew I had to escape the Cariatides as quickly as possible after her performance to go and cool myself off not in the freezing air of Paris, but in the new open mic and jam over at Coolin Irish Pub, that I discovered last week. I was not let down there either.

Back to Marianne BP. It’s kind of difficult to define what she does or how she does it. I think about that a lot as I watch and listen. And I must apologize for a lot of the jerky camera work, but it’s difficult to control the handheld camera when one’s eyes are partly looking at its screen and partly drawn to the perform “en direct.” Marianne has great presence, an amazingly sexy voice and delivery and some very clever and interesting lyrics. She even tells stories a lot of the time, and has this cool approach about “transforming” herself into things like a woman in a poster in the metro, or a GPS, or a man.

And her idea of taking some classic jazz lyrics and chanting them to different melodies is very cool too, as it is usually the opposite to what happens with classic jazz. And the accompaniment by Thomas Kpade was so entertaining and intellectually pleasing as well, the two of them just did a sensational one-hour show, never losing their audience. ANYWAY…. more another time no doubt!

Coolin was great too, although it got off to a late start due to the horrible habit that so many sports bars have of leaving soccer – or football, if you prefer – matches to play out until the end even if no one is watching them! But there were a few new faces this time around, like Mary Catherine and Maddie Speed. And the late night jam went so long that it went pretty much beyond closing time, much to the chagrin of at least one bartender wanting out of that joint. I’ll be back.