Thoughts on the Week: Paris May Be Over (But I'm Not Over Paris)

I think most musicians and creative people recognize the feeling of falling on deaf ears, but this was less of an existential problem and more of an acoustical one. The street was simply too noisy to have a conversation.

Mostly I blame the strip club across the street.

The entertainment had spilled out onto the terrace and into the street itself. A buff, hairless, mostly naked man wrapped in an American flag was making his way from table to table, grinding enthusiastically on tourists. Eventually he removed the flag to reveal a much smaller flag that barely contained his flagpole.

Anyway.

I turned to my companions, saxophonist Rick Margitza and bassist Peter Giron, and yelled, “I think Paris is over.”

Both Rick and Peter are Americans who have lived in Paris for decades. Peter nodded and said, “This city has nothing to do with the city I moved to.”

When my dad and I first started playing the Sunset back in 1999, the neighborhood was seedy in a different way.

The Sunset sits on a short stretch of the Rue des Lombards in Châtelet, alongside fellow jazz clubs the Duc des Lombards and the Baiser Salé. Back then, the street was shared by musicians and prostitutes, mostly older women in fur coats lingering in doorways with painted lips and rouged cheeks, offering company to passersby.

Some of the women worked out of apartments above the club. Playing there, one almost felt they were colleagues. After all, aren’t we both selling love in one way or another?

I remember smiling shyly at the women as I entered and exited the venue, a small gesture of solidarity and égalité. Over time, the old ladies retired or died off, replaced by something far less charming: tiki bars, bad sushi restaurants, and late-night strip clubs.

It happens, as Madison Cunningham likes to say, all at once and then suddenly. One day you find yourself looking back across nearly three decades of experience in a place and realize that things ain’t necessarily what they used to be.

On the other hand, I am currently in the midst of yet another jazz pilgrimage with my 82-year-old father, who continues to give it up every night on stage. Every set is a reminder that while devoting oneself to a life in music may be a kind of disease, it’s also a kind of cure.

So while Paris may be over, apparently I am not over Paris.

The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur.

Last weekend Ben and I were at Mezzrow in New York with Alexis Cuadrado and John Ellis, a wonderful way to begin the tour. I spent my final days before leaving for Europe finishing sessions for my new solo record: a day of horns with Ellis, Tatum Greenblatt and Brian Drye; percussion overdubs with Moses Patrou; and bass overdubs with Rob Jost.

I brought that energy with me to Paris, where yesterday afternoon my dad and I squeezed into a small Left Bank studio to record vocals and organ. (See below.)

I honestly can’t wait to share this record with you. I’ve crossed over from the familiar late-project panic that always arrives somewhere near the finish line into something much more enjoyable: excitement.

It’s a record full of stories. Each song tells one, and the way the album itself came together is its own kind of story too.

Speaking of stories, WBGO’s The Art of the Story continues to provide a wonderful excuse to meet new people and learn new things. These short radio pieces air daily on 88.3 FM in the New York area and are always available online.

A few that stayed with me this week:

Photographer Steve Schapiro is best known for documenting the American century.

He photographed the civil rights movement alongside James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr. His work appeared in Life, Look, Newsweek, and Time. He shot the first cover of People magazine and created some of the most enduring images from films like The Godfather and Taxi Driver.

Yet somehow he was never known as a jazz photographer.

Until now.

A remarkable new book, Steve Schapiro Jazz, collects 250 photographs from a single year spent documenting New York jazz musicians in 1961 and 1962. I spoke with Schapiro’s widow, Maura, and writer Richard Scheinen about this extraordinary hidden archive.

Hear my Art of the Story with Maura and Richard.

I revisited an earlier conversation with another kind of jazz archivist, my friend Zev Feldman, who is sometimes called the Indiana Jones of Jazz.

Zev has built an extraordinary career around finding unheard recordings by legendary artists and bringing them into the world. Our conversation explores the thrill of discovery and the strange promise contained in music that has been hiding in plain sight for decades.

Hear my Art of the Story with Zen Feldman.

Warren Wolf is one of the great vibraphonists of his generation, but he never planned on making the instrument his life’s work.

Raised in Baltimore by a father who insisted he study music seriously, Wolf spent years practicing vibraphone, drums and piano before discovering his own voice. Today he continues to move easily between straight-ahead jazz, groove-oriented projects, and ambitious works like Chick Corea’s Lyric Suite for Sextet.

Next week, summer with Ben Sidran begins again.

We’ll be at Mezzrow in New York on June 5–6 with bassist Alexis Cuadrado and saxophonist John Ellis before heading to Europe for the rest of the month and the midwest in August.

Hear my Art of the Story on Warren Wolf.

If you missed this week’s Third Story podcast with Lakecia Benjamin, you might enjoy the shorter Art of the Story version.

I loved talking with Lakecia. She’s funny, self-aware, confident, charming, and deeply committed to her art. The story centers on a phone call she received as a teenager from trumpet master Clark Terry, a moment that helped shape everything that came after.

Next week the tour continues in London and Barcelona.

Come say hello if you happen to be nearby. Otherwise, stay tuned for the next installment.

Anyway, that’s the week.

Talk to you soon,

Leo