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1999 - HOTS repeats
previous success in France
By Jack Elder |
The New HOTS Jazz Orchestra, a 1920s-40s-style little big band based in Herndon, VA, toured Paris, Normandy, and the Val Du Loire in France during the last two weeks of June 1999.
| HOTS had completed a tour of Provence and the Cote d'Azur in July 1997. The Orchestra was invited back by to France by Francois Zamora, a former HOTS member. With assistance from local bands and orchestras, the band played a series of six engagements in and near Paris, Rouen, Blois and Fontainbleau while undertaking an ambitious schedule of sight-seeing. HOTS invited along several of the Washington area swing dancers. In total, twenty-four persons made the tour this year, including ten band members, plus spouses, and friends. |
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HOTS departed Dulles on Air France Monday, 14 June and arrived in Paris at 9:00 AM on Tuesday, 1 July. We cleared our luggage and and band instruments, sound gear, etc., through Customs, rented five vans and a small 4-seater European sedan, and drove to nearby Acheres to check into a provincial hostel. HOTS carried all its instruments, including electric piano, bass, tuba and drums, plus a full set of audio amplification equipment as we traveled through our various venues in France. |
The Centre d'Accueil Internationale MUTACOSMO, a hostel and residence hotel for an industrial training center, provided clean, though spartan, non-air-conditioned double rooms, each with sink and shower (unisex toilets down the hall), and a daily continental breakfast of orange juice, fruit, yogurt, fresh baguettes, coffee, and hot chocolate. The hostel also graciously provided space for storing our shipping containers throughout the entire stay.
At about 5 PM local time Tuesday, our first
day in France, we drove into Paris around the Etoile/Arc du Triomphe and
down the Champs Elysees into the Latin Quarter. Driving through downtown
Paris during rush hour was a real trial by fire for some of our first-time
drivers in Europe, but despite some close calls, there were no accidents.
| The quais along the left bank of the
Seine below Notre Dame Cathedral opposite
the Ile Saint Louis are relatively wide,
with a series of small parks. HOTS was invited to play for the Paris swing dance club "Shake It Good" in one of three amphitheaters cut into the river banks. The other two nearby amphitheaters were concurrently occupied by a rock club and a tango group dancing to records. HOTS set up its equipment, caught a quick steak-frites at the Buffalo Grill, and played three hours from 9 p.m.- 12 p.m. for about 300 or more local jitterbugs. The band was well-received, collecting the crowds from the other amphitheaters. Band members and dancers thoroughly enjoyed themselves. |
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Language was no problem, and our American dancers learned to
dance
Le Rock with their French
partners. Imagine a large enthusiastic crowd of dancers and
listeners enjoying themselves on the banks of the Seine, the setting
sun (about 11 p.m.) behind us illuminating Notre Dame and the Sacre-Coeur
basilica on Montmartre, and a steady stream of the Seine's brightly
lighted "Bateaux Mouche" tour boats pulling over close to the banks
to see and hear us at about ten minute intervals as they made their
turns to return down the river. It was one of those unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime evenings; one that might have been considered a romantic evening if we had not been so tired. It was about 8 a.m. Washington time when the HOTS troup returned to the hostel; by then, most of us had been awake for over 36 hours. We had really begun the trip with a rousingly successful performance and had cemented a good relationship with the Paris swing dancers which we hoped would lead to engagements at significant Paris dance halls like "Slow Club" and "Balajo" if we are able to make another trip in 2001. |
| After approximately four hours of sleep we were ready to see Paris. For the next two days, tour members visited the Louvre and all the other principal sights in Paris. The weather was perfect, and in-town transport by train and metro was easy. The group gathered for dinner in the Latin Quarter on Wednesday evening and all ascended to the top of the Eiffel Tower that night, catching the last train back to the hotel. |
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On Thursday, we drove to and spent the day at Versailles, then returned to play for an exciting evening of dancing for the residents of our hostel -- mostly students and young French workers in company-sponsored training programs.
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Don
& Jack in concert |
On Friday evening, we played a joint concert with the Orchestre de l'Alliance Musicale of Maisons-Laffitte. This was the local group which helped to orgnize this portion of our visit. We closed the evening with the audience dancing. On Saturday, we packed our gear and drove to Rouen in Normandy by way of Monet's home and garden in Giverney. We checked into the Hotel-Restaurant Clarine, a very nice and not-too-expensive French chain, in downtown Rouen. |
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That night our host, Gerard Hoyes, escorted us to a truly French
evening at a local guingnette (nightclub) on the banks of the
lower Seine. We dined on a local specialty
moules-frites (mussels and French fries) and danced
to a bal musette (French accordian) orchestra. We learned
several new dances, including the Paso Doble (a Spanish one-step to
"bullfight" music) and the very-French
Java (something like a waltz where the lady's (cavaliere's)
hands are laced behind the man's neck, and the man'shands lend
gentle support to the lady's derriere). On Sunday we explored the seaside resorts of Honfleur and Deauville, then drove on to see the tapestry at Bayeaux, arriving late in the evening at the Invasion Beaches near Arromanche. We had planned to regroup for a seafood dinner in Honfleur, but quickly discovered that the distances and time needed to sightsee were too great. Each van found its own supper - mine had cous-cous royale in Caen - and we got back to the hotel after midnight. |
| On Monday, our host Gerard led us on a walking tour of old Rouen. We saw where Joan of Arc was put to death and many beautiful old buildings in the Norman style, some dating back to medieval times. Some of the group then went shopping on their own while others toured several abbeys in the Brotonne forest. We were back together for supper in the Place Saint Marc on the sidewalk in front of the Le Saxo Bar. |
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That night, June 21 (summer solstice), is a national holiday which has now been officially designated a country-wide music festival day. (It had previously been just a day for serious drinking.) Each city is illuminated and bands play in nearly every town square and in front of nearly every restaurant. HOTS was scheduled to play in front of a row of restaurants in the old section of Rouen. |
We had a quick supper at our host Mediterranean restaurant, then alternated sets with a loud local rock band which had set up only 30 feet away. A large crowd gathered for each set HOTS played. As best we can tell, dance bands like ours playing big band swing and hot dance music no longer exist in France, and the crowd raved about how good our music was. Most of the other bands in town were playing Euro-techno music (think bad-loud-amateur-rock-garage band with a serious social/political agenda).
| On Tuesday we drove north to Dieppe, then south along the
Alabaster Coast for a short swim in the ice cold English Channel
after climbing to the top of the chalk cliffs at Etretat. That
evening we shared a catered supper of local Norman specialties
including several meat, poultry, and fish turines, charcuterie (cold
cuts), and elegant French deserts with plenty of wine. We played for
several hours of dancing for the members and families of two local
orchestras, with several of their members sitting in, and we
finished the evening in a jam session with members of a local
Dixieland band. We ended our night bout 2:00 a.m. with several
rounds of Kir Royale (a cocktail of Creme de Cassis and
Champagne.) On Wednesday we rose very early and spent most of the day climbing through the shops and monastery at Mont Saint-Michel. Most of us had supper down the coast in the walled city of Saint Malo in Brittany. There just was not enough time to do either the bungee jumping or kayaking in the Suisse Normande that had been on our planned agenda. We left Rouen Thursday morning and drove to Chartres to see the cathedral. Then we continued south to Blois on the Loire River, checking into another Hotel Clarine, where we played a concert that evening on their patio after supper for hotel and restaurant patrons. |
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On Friday, we visited the chateaux at Chambord and Chenonceaux and drove by numerous other Loire valley chateaux. Some of the group picnicked on the Cher, while several others rented bikes for some close-up touring in Blois. Saturday was a day for wine sampling at local vinyards, and then moving to our last location, the hostel Centre des Loisirs - Le Bois du Lys near Fontainbleau. This hostel is a regional sports training complex. HOTS found that the system of provincial hostels provided perfectly adequate and the most reasonably priced accommodations in France. This one had a complete bathroom for each bedroom and even offered a swimming pool.
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Saturday evening, the entire HOTS tour group gathered for a leisurely (six-hour) four-course Alsatian-French dinner at a very nice restaurant in Fontainbleau. The profiteroles were "to die for." On Sunday morning, while some went back into Paris for mass at Notre Dame and more shopping (Fragonard - perfume), a few of us took the vans back to Acheres to gather up our shipping containers, etc. By afternoon, the weather had finally turned a little rainy, and tour members were thoroughly exhausted. Several had visited the chateaux at Vaux-le-Vicompte and Fontainbleau, while others had visited the medieval city of Provins or the artist's village of Barbizon. The last evening, most of us went to a Chinese restaurant in Melun for supper. We returned too late to play an impromptu dance for our fellow hostel residents, a touring group of British high school French language students. |
In retrospect, while it was another great trip, we realize that because of the distances involved, we had optimistically scheduled much more than could be accomplished in the time allowed. Even so, despite our exhausting schedule, we got a surprising amount done. We'll have much more beach and relaxation time when we tour the western coast of France from Bordeaux to Biarritz - tentatively scheduled for summer 2001.
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