“Espace Jean Villar” is an unassuming movie house and club in an outlying suburb of Paris. This twisty, drizzly township is called Arcueil, and it was (we’re told more than once) the home of minimalist composer Erik Satie. Happy Apple, a Twin Cities jazz trio, is making its European debut here. I’m along as the group’s personal manager, escort, and de facto travel agent. And while it’s been four days since we touched down, a particularly resilient strain of jet lag has infected our whole entourage. You know it’s a rough bout when not even the surgical analysis of Olympic curling on late-night TV can summon the sandman to our hotel rooms.
The Euro is also making its debut, and this actually levels the playing field a bit for non-French speakers like ourselves. Local merchants handle the unfamilar coins and cosmopolitan bank notes with a troubled reticence. They have to think about dispensing your correct change almost as hard as you have to think about how to ask for a pack of Galoises. Spoiled as I am by our mild winter back home, the cigs provide a measure of comfort against the frigid, rainy wind that whips down Arcueil’s tangle of steep hills and narrow streets.
From a band’s point of view, British audiences get beaucoup grief for their stoic demeanor. But listening to American jazz, the French could give them a run for their quid. No matter how hard the band is grooving tonight, I can’t make out a single tapping toe. They watch and listen with stony reserve from the first note to the last. A few nod their heads now and again, but with the cautious restraint of a Kiwanis Club treasurer at a hip-hop show. They’re appreciative, no question—if the persistent doting of local photographers isn’t proof enough, the demand for an encore is pretty revealing—but compared to the average 400 Bar crowd, it feels about as rowdy as a Lutheran church service.
The vibe is almost unnerving until you realize what it signifies: Respect. Open-mindedness. Attentiveness to original, sometimes challenging music—music like Satie wrote a century ago. The irony is that a band starts to get uncomfortable when fans listen this closely. As the gig lets out and Euros are gingerly inspected at the merch counter, I ask a local jazz writer about the steely calm of the crowd. Is this typical? He doesn’t seem to understand the question. Trying to explain myself, I mistakenly give him the impression that American jazz fans will whoop and holler like Arsenio Hall at the drop of a key change. He looks at the floor. I change the subject. “Got a light?”
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