This Saturday, Margaret and I went to a free concert in Parc St. Cloud, south of us on the outskirts of Paris. It was actually a really beautiful park with formal gardens stretching on forever. And it was nearly empty! Beautiful things abound around here, I guess, and it's too far out of central Paris for tourists to get there.
So that was nice. The concert was another story. It was actually a series of concerts, but we didn't get there till the last one. It was an Ethiopian folk singer and a Parisian jazz bassist playing together. Intriguing, right?
Well, all I can say is that they have unentertaining jazz fusion music in France too. It turned out to be dark un-melodic chanting over a thrumming, distorted bass line. Perfect for those contemplative evenings at home in a thunderstorm, or if the end of the world has come and you want to ponder the sins of your civilization. Not so much for a Saturday afternoon in the park when most of your audience is families with small children. People fled in droves.
But the park was beautiful, and we had a great picnic. And it was free.
Sounds oddly similar to this weird little event I did called Biennial of the Americas. If you are lucky Lucas will do an impression for you when you get back. But yay for free concerts and beautiful parks in a different country / culture! Have I told you I am jealous yet?
ReplyDeleteActually, the weird combination of acts was very reminiscent of the Biennial. The act before the one we saw was a clarinet band. And the other big feature was all of the fountains in the park running.
ReplyDelete"Perfect for those contemplative evenings at home in a thunderstorm, or if the end of the world has come and you want to ponder the sins of your civilization."
ReplyDeleteI laughed out loud. Sounds enthralling.