Having landed in France with the American troops fighting in the First World War, jazz settled in well in Paris, the city which made Josephine Baker its muse during the Roaring 20s and adopted swing as a lifestyle in the cabarets of Pigalle and Montparnasse. Thanks to Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, France saw the emergence of the first original style of jazz which was not born in America. More than half a century after the death of the affable gypsy, jazz is thriving in this city where the memory still lingers of the great jazzmen who made it their home, from Sidney Bechet to Bud Powell via Dexter Gordon and even, as an echo of the rumour in May ‘68, the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It was in a Parisian studio that Miles Davis recorded the music which made Louis Malle’s film, Ascenseur pour l’Échafaud, famous. The singer Dee Dee Bridgewater revealed her talent here. And even nowadays, it is not uncommon to come across the familiar silhouette of saxophonist Archie Shepp in the shadows of a club.
 
Previously with Martial Solal and Michel Petrucciani, today with musicians such as Julien Lourau and Baptiste Trotignon, French jazz has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison with other international venues. Experimental, traditional, eclectic, fertile – jazz in Paris does not stay still for long. It takes on the colours of Africa or the Caribbean, it tunes in to electro, it cultivates the memory of bebop, it keeps the gypsy flame burning, it freely plays at being a “sorcerer’s apprentice”, and finally gains the female touch, it always dances, mingles with hip-hop, confronts slam poetry… In short, jazz is changing and growing. Solo in an art gallery, in a big band in a large hall, in a small group in a club, in front of the stalls of the leading theatres – it is at home everywhere. It is up to you to choose yours.

And there is no shortage in supply. Apart from the various clubs and bars which regularly host jazz, it is on the bill in Paris and the Ile-de-France at an impressive number of festivals throughout the season. So much so that there is always something to discover: the various forms of African-American music and avant-garde at Sons d’Hiver (Val-de-Marne) and Banlieues Bleues (Seine-Saint-Denis), European jazz with JazzyColors which takes place in the cultural centres of the capital’s foreign institutes, the creativity of modern-day jazz with Jazz Au Fil De l’Oise (Val-d’Oise) or Jazz aux Arènes de Montmartre, free open-air concerts at La Défense Jazz Festival (Hauts-de-Seine) or the Paris Jazz Festival in the Parc Floral, a whole district moving to jazz during the Jazz à Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the diversity of contemporary styles and traditions at the jazz festival in La Villette, the jazzmen topping the bill at the CareFusion Jazz Festival, the Festival All-Stars at New Morning , at Sunside ’s American Jazz Festival and at the Enghien Jazz Festival, the liveliness of gypsy swing at the Django Reinhardt festival in Samois-sur-Seine or the Jazz-Musette des Puces festival in Saint-Ouen, or various fusions at the Jazz ‘n Klezmer festival… It is impossible not to find one to suit your taste!