Découvrir Paris

Cap at a rakish angle, Gitane hanging from the lip... as Guillaume Veillet's liner note points out, Paris's most indigenous music may seem a trifle cozy, but The Rough Guide to Paris Café Music shows the inaccuracies of that prejudice. The origins of French café music may lie in the Auvergne, whose musicians played the smallpipes, but the biggest influence that fed into the music came from Italy, with an organetto tradition traced to Nascente's Bar Italia (the other big influence came from the gypsy world). The Bal Musette café ballroom was the melting pot in which the smallpipes gave way to the accordion and stars began to emerge. Emile Vacher and Charles Peguri were the founding fathers of this tradition, and they're both present on this entrancing new Rough Guide installment. We also hear Jean Corti, who played in a military brothel in the 1940s, and the drug-addicted Fréhel, whose smoky tones are the authentic sound of the 1920s. The variety of styles in these 25 tracks is dazzling, as hot jazz alternates with modern cool. Django Reinhardt's son Babik beats up a lovely storm with the New Quintette du Hot Club de France; meanwhile, Edith Piaf sings a song called "L'Accordeoniste." And if you're hooked on this instrument, get a copy of Wergo's Global Accordion: Early Recordings, a marvelous cornucopia of vanished sounds. --Michael Church