Le Jazz Hot! - Paris Jazz Clubs

With the outbreak of World War II, the rise of the "Zazous", the gilded youth of Paris kept jazz music alive. Their name is derived from a corruption of Cab Calloway's famous scat singing style. The female Zazous with peroxide blonde hair and bright red lipstick, and their male counterparts with slick hair and zoot suits were often harassed by the Nazis for their music. This forced jazz clubs to go underground, hence why most of the jazz clubs in Paris are in cellars today.
Some clubs serve dinners; all serve drinks and cocktails. The concierge will have a weekly listing of the different jazz clubs and shows.
Here are some favorites with the locals:

Duc des Lombards 42 rue des Lombards 75003 Paris This is a Le Marais favorite with an intimate circular stage; two performances nightly. Highly recommended.


Caveau des Oubliettes 52 rue Galande 75005 Paris A former 12th century prison, this jazz club is situated deep in cellars in the heart of the Latin Quarter. There is a cover charge for Friday and Saturday nights, but the rest of the week, one can catch blues, Latin jam and jazz fusion sessions.


Caveau de la Huchette 5 rue de la Hucette 75005 Paris This divey place was a former 16th century building housing a Freemasons Lodge during the French Revolution and entertained many GI Americans still living in Paris after the war. Excellent international and local acts.


Le 9 Jazz Club 9 rue Moret 75011 Paris This new club in the 11th arrondissement has been claimed by the locals. Singers and spirited jazz piano sessions and €35 three-course dinner with wine option makes this a great place to spend the evening.

Musing On France- Wednesday Evening

“The French are a logical people, which is one reason the English dislike them so intensely. The other is that they own France, a country which we have always judged to be much too good for them.”

~ Robert Morley

THE REAL PARAPLUIES (UMBRELLAS) DE CHERBOURG

In 1963, when director Jacques Demy was making his enchanting musical film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg with Catherine Deneuve, one of the fascinated onlookers was 12-year-old Jean-Pierre Yvon, son of an old Cherbourg family whose tanneries dated back to 1800. After studies in Paris and a 10-year career as a photojournalist, Yvon returned to his hometown and opened a gift and accessories shop. In 1986, with the film and its colorful umbrellas in mind — and the wet and windy weather of the English Channel coast as an added incentive — he decided to make a real parapluie de Cherbourg. He designed three models, had them made and the rest is local history. Now manufactured in Yvon's own Cherbourg factory, Le Véritable Cherbourg has been called the Rolls Royce of umbrellas. Made with fine fabrics, engraved brass, gilt or steel fittings and handles of polished maple, chestnut and other fine woods, it can withstand winds up to 75 mph head on and 34 mph from the underside. Latest update: microcuir, a tough new microfiber fabric with a simulated leather surface. Priced at around €125, each Véritable Cherbourg is embroidered with the company's crest — a shield surrounded by a laurel wreath and a pair of crossed umbrellas.
The Department store on the Left Bank – Au Bon Marche sells these wonderful umbrellas.

Your Table Is Waiting - Alain Ducasse

I am happy to report that I know have a special relationship with the Alain Ducasse group worldwide. If you should ever need a table, a good table for sure! , at anyone of the 20 or so Ducasse restaurants worldwide, I would be glad to assit you. I do charge a small fee for that service.
AND............................
If you are in Paris on the 13th of April, When professional chefs peruse produce for their kitchens, what attracts their eyes? The answer — and insider access — will be waiting at the 2nd annual Alain Ducasse Market at Hotel Plaza Athénée in the heart of Paris . The renowned Executive Chef, who opened Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée in September 2000, has arranged for his 15 favorite food suppliers throughout France to display pick-of-the-season produce and other provisions in the garden courtyard of the Dorchester Collection address on Avenue Montaigne.
A feast for the eyes as well as the palate, the Alain Ducasse Market is open to the public and will unfold as a dream destination for foodies and gourmets. Market-goers will have access to local purveyors as they pay homage to the brilliance of French produce and the freshest products including butter, cheeses, mushrooms, wild strawberries, fish, poultry and a range of fresh-grown vegetables. The market will be displayed in the hotel's courtyard amid a glorious setting created just for the event by Pascale Benhamou, who redesigned La Galerie des Gobelins at Plaza Athénée.
While nothing will be sold at the Alain Ducasse Market, there will be plenty of opportunity to rejoice in the celebration of sustainable food, with tastings and tips on cooking and preservation to bring out the best in the kitchen. Attendees will also receive the purveyors&rsquo addresses where they can directly purchase the freshest products in France.
The 2nd annual Alain Ducasse Market at Hotel Plaza Athénée will take place on Tuesday, April 13, 2010, from 10:00am to 5:00pm. The event is complimentary and open to the public.

From El Greco to Dalí. The Great Spanish Masters - March 12 – August 1, 2010

One of Paris’ finest, yet least-known, museums – the Musée Jacquemart-André – presents a stunning exhibition of Spanish art collected by Juan Antonio Pérez Simón and showcases more than 50 masterpieces by 25 artists. Spanning nearly 500 years, the exhibit features works by El Greco, Murillo, Goya, Picasso, Miro, and Dali, this dazzling collection (appearing in Paris for the first time) represents the evolution of Spanish art through the centuries.

The often-overlooked Parisian museum gem sits just off the Champs Elyseés and houses one of the finest permanent collections of European art in the city. It was once the private home of banker Édouard André and society painter Nélie Jacquemart who left their home and its fine art collections to the Institut de France. In 1913, the home was opened to the public as a museum.

A bit of Trivia - the home/museum was used in the opening sequences for the movie "Gigi"

A Day Trip To Strasbourg - It's Like Eating In A Franco-German Folk Tale

Lunch ( or dinner) at the Maison Kammerzell is very much like eating in a Folk Tale. Located in Strasbourg; it is just an easy 2 hour and 15 min trip on the TGV from Paris. Home to the European Parliament, chocolate-box Strasbourg, France, perfectly mixes French and German culture in the Alsace region. The old town – La Petite France - on the canal-crossed island of Grande Ile, is crowded with timber-framed houses covered in decorative brickwork. Here Try smoked pork sauerkraut, and relax over local Heineken and Kronenbourg beers, or a glass of regional aromatic Gerwürztraminer wine.
Located in a 15th-century wooden faced  historic building, the restuarant Maison Kammerzell is the most arrestingly ornate of many on the cathedral square. Here, in a warren of rooms on four floors, variously vaulted and frescoed, enfolds you in a conspiracy of conviviality. You're beaming even before the baeckeoffe ( a three-meat stew) or choucroute (sauerkraut) with fish arrives. Then you're beaming some more. Beyond the Renaissance windows, the pink sandstone cathedral soars with filigree finesse.
After lunch and stoll through the old section, its a quick trip on the TGV back to Paris.

The restaurant in the 1890's!

The World’s Most Sinful Hotel Suite? In Paris, of Course!

It must be One by the Five, in Paris’s Latin Quarter. No detail is overlooked: champagne and berries to prepare your own love potion; a perfume-stocked dressing parlour; a dedicated salon for dancing; even a naughty bedside camera, so you can play back your horizontal salsa next morning. The main event, though, is the ethereal “floating” bed, which hovers cloud-like beneath a deep blue ceiling twinkling with stars.

Suite starts at  per night, Euro 760 ( based on 3 night stay)

SECRET PARIS: Museum of Letters & Manuscripts

My wonderful agent in Paris has just advised me of this new musuem:
The first museum of its kind in Europe, this treasure-trove of rare letters and historic manuscripts is cloistered away in a lovely 1608 residence in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter. There are more than 250 originals to be ogled, including: letters by Napoleon and Voltaire; calculations by Einstein on the Theory of Relativity; a Mozart score; and General Eisenhower's cease-fire command on May 7, 1945. 222 Boulevard Saint-Germain

Hours: Wednesday, 1pm-9pm; Thursday – Sunday, 10am-6pm.

Zorro Comes to Paris!

ZORRO – LE MUSICAL!
The Folies Bergère hosts the fabulous theatrical extravaganza, ZORRO, complete with Flameco dancing, fencing matches and sword fights, incredible sets, music by the Gipsy Kings, and direction by Christopher Renshaw.WHEN: through April 30, 2010

Prices from E24 – E125 For tickets: http://www.zorro-lemusical.fr./
Note: The best seats always for the Folies ,are the ones that come with dinner, but of course, are more expensive.

A Romantic Apartment in Paris - The Truth

Paris Apartment rentals – The Truth
Renting an apartment in Paris or a Villa in France can be another exciting way to experience the French way of life and sometimes can be a more economical way to budget for a longer stay.
But I must caution you ‘wild-eyed, Romantics” out there -
A serious word of caution. The rental of apartments in Paris can be a delicate affair. In no other area of French property rentals is there so much potential for disappointment and misunderstanding.
The problem, I believe, lies in the gap between American travelers' romantic fantasies of a typical Paris apartment, and the unfortunate reality. When people think of Paris, they imagine a city which more than any other in the world epitomizes style, elegance and unfailing good taste in all things related to the decorative arts. This perception is actively fostered by Parisians and borne out in innumerable ways, from the way Parisian women dress to how galleries and antiquaires arrange their merchandise in store display windows. But alas, when it comes to apartments offered for rental, nothing could be further from the truth.
Having been in the business for over 40 years and I and my agent have inspected scores of apartments in Paris over the years, we have found many to be drab, dreary and not up to normal standards of cleanliness. Even if they are located in fine neighborhoods or are offered at exceptionally low rates, I do not offer such properties for rental. There are many rentals companies, but I only use two agents in France who specializes in rentals and whom I trust and have a good track record with. My apartment rentals are not cheap and I will not sell lower priced, sub standard apartments. My reputation and Protravel’s reputation depends on it. That said, my mission is to turn your fondest dream about renting a home/apartment in France into a living reality.

HOLY RUSSIA EXHIBITION IN PARIS AT THE LOUVRE

From March 05 to May 24. 2010
Russian Art from the Beginnings to Peter the Great. As part of France's "Year of Russia" celebrations, the Louvre is hosting a major exhibition devoted to the history of Christian Russia, from the 9th to the 18th century.

The exhibition begins with the appearance of "Russians" in the historical record and the rivalries and power struggles between Latins, Vikings and Byzantines. There followed the early conversions in the Kievan Rus', culminating in the famed "baptism" of Vladimir the Great in 988. Rus' then became definitively Christian, borrowing its ecclesiastical model from Constantinople. Christian art flourished in Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod, Pskov, Vladimir, Suzdal and elsewhere, wavering stylistically between Byzantium and the temptation of the Latin West. After a hiatus during the 13th century with the invasion and subsequent domination of the region by the Mongols, Christian art returned in all its splendor in the major Russian centers, notable figures being the painters Theophanes, Rublev and Dionysius. This renaissance was accompanied by an unprecedented proliferation of monasteries and the gradual ascendancy of Moscow. In 16th-century Moscow —the self-proclaimed "Third Rome" and "New Jerusalem"— the reigns of Grand Princes Basil III and Ivan IV the Terrible ushered in a new artistic golden age which reached its high point with the crowning of Ivan as Tsar (1547) and the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate (1589). After the "Time of Troubles" interregnum came a 17th century of conflict and revival—the rise of the Romanovs, the religious reforms of Patriarch Nikon —then the sweeping political and aesthetic changes imposed by Peter the Great.