Jazz adapts well to this simplicity, returning to the authenticity of its roots: a double bass a little squeezed in, a saxophonist who moves to the side to let the waiters pass, an audience which has come deliberately or by chance, attracted by the atmosphere created by the music. Music students, local professionals at a loose end, excellent amateurs or emerging talents – all come to find musicians who are living jazz to the full. Admission is very often free.

Originally itinerant, gypsy jazz is very common in Parisian cafés. Guitarist Rodolphe Raffalli, who has made it a speciality to interpret Georges Brassens in the style of Django Reinhardt, performs every Monday at the Piano Vache. Django Reinhardt’s heirs regularly bring their guitars to Attirail, between klezmer or French singing concerts, and, every Monday evening, to the Taverne de Cluny. Fans of the genre cannot miss visiting the legendary venue for gypsy music, La Chope des Puces, in Saint-Ouen, where every weekend specialists of the genre gather around Ninine Garcia.

Many bars offer jazz concerts as part of a bill including rock groups, world music, bossanova and electro, or even plays and poetry readings. This is especially true at Au Chat Noir, on Rue Saint-Maur near Oberkampf, at Nouvô Cosmos in Jourdain, where it is also possible to have dinner, at Piston Pélican in Ménilmontant, an old bistro which has retained the cachet of its old-world patina, as well as at 24 Bis, a small not-for-profit venue which organizes a musical aperitif every Saturday and exhibitions, near Denfert-Rochereau.

At the Trois Arts, a venue given over to eclectic music, an open jam session is held every Sunday at 6pm. Every day in Montparnasse, the Swan Bar, an elegant meeting place for American Francophiles, offers a combination of jazzy singing, Brazilian music and young jazz talents.

In Montmartre, the alternative and cosmopolitan Bab-Ilo includes blues, singing, comedy and jazz in its programme, with young musicians like guitarist William Chabbey. At the Olympic Café, a former dance hall in the Goutte d’Or district, where an alter-globalist and anticonformist spirit reigns, between alternative rock and African music, jazz here is free and experimental, confronting slam poetry and happily heading off the beaten path.

In Malakoff, Fabrica’Son, a not-for-profit venue set up and run by volunteer musicians, offers concerts every first Sunday of the month at 4pm, which you can come to listen to with your family. In Maisons-Alfort, the Bar Belge and its menu of 300 beers from all around the world, hosts concerts from Thursdays to Saturdays, with a high proportion of jazz.