Labels: Third Story Records
Review by: Graeme Cunningham
Paris’ left bank. Circa 1920s.
Sweat is condensing on the cold stone walls of this glorified cellar. People link arms and spin each other around and around, a thick fog of pungent European tobacco smoke hangs suspended in the air, mixing with the odours of perspiration and spilt cheap red wine.
On a makeshift stage in the corner of the cellar, a band is frantically fighting to stay in command of the raucous din they’re creating. Fuelled by copious quantities of absinthe, their fevered amalgam of klezmer, jazz and pure Dadaist spirit erupts fourth, the bellow of the tuba reverberating around the walls of this damp Parisian basement. The accordion player looks like he’s wrestling an angry octopus, his hands a blur. The clarinet flies over and under both keeping pace with the frantic drums.
The high spirits are proving too much for Toulouse-Lautrec, who’s just disappeared head over heels over the back of his chair. This sends Hemingway into convulsive fits of laughter pounding his big fists on the table in approval. There are seedy old men peering lecherously from the gloom, eyes transfixed upon the heaving bosoms of the female dancers. Candlelight, being the only illumination, distorts silhouettes and projects monstrous shadows across the walls.
As the sun comes up outside, the revellers disperse, creeping away through the silent street nursing the beginnings of monstrous hangovers. Waxed moustaches from the night before hang limp and flaccid. Tonight the band will perform again as they always do. Glasses will be raised, bottles emptied and the world put to rights.
Great music paints pictures in my head. Guignol paints them with exceptional clarity.