SACHA BOUTROS at Vibrato Grill & Jazz in Bel Air, CA

Considering the bold ambition, culturally specific theme and majority of the repertoire driving Sacha Boutros’ transcendent, multi-faceted performance at Vibrato Grill & Jazz in mid-September, it makes perfect sense to use a French expression – tour de force – to launch the praises of her spirited, multi-faceted performance that night.

Internationally renowned as a global peace ambassador and multiple award-winning musical virtuosa who speaks seven languages and sings in 14, the multi-cultural singer, songwriter and vocal interpreter visit to one of L.A.’s hippest hotspots was part of a CD release tour spotlighting the songs from her latest album Sacha: Paris After Dark, a celebration of a century of French and American composers in the City of Light and Love. The Vibrato performance was cleverly and enticingly billed Where Gershwin Meets Gainsbourg – 100 Years of Jazz in Paris. Sacha’s show three days later at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla doubled as the official CD release concert and the inaugural concert for the singer’s Music Without Borders series.   

At one point in the generous, nearly two hour show, Sacha, ever the full scale entertaining  charmer, was telling one of her many effusive anecdotes – perhaps a personal story from her life, maybe setting context for the next number – when she stopped herself and admitted she was talking a lot because, not having performed live for many months due to health issues, she was a little nervous. She need not have worried because she held the audience rapt the whole time. In an industry where so many artists take the stage and just do tune after tune without much crowd engagement, Sacha made this much more than a jazz club date. It felt alternately like an intimate dinner party punctuated with sultry, sensually exotic (mostly French, some English) tunes and a boisterous house party with a charismatic MC leading festive singalongs.

Did it matter that the Vibrato date happened the day after Mexican Independence Day? It did to Sacha, who used the occasion to announce her pride as a dual Mexican-American citizen with Mexican and French Lebanese heritage. After the dual shout outs “Viva Mexico! Viva America!”, she introduced famed the famed, highly featured trumpeter in her quintet, Stephane Belmondo, and got down to business with a infectiously breezy and hypnotically percussive twist on Gilbert Becaud’s “Je Reviens Te Chercher,” a lush romance about returning to a lover many years after breaking up, which Sacha calls “symbolic of the soundtrack of my childhood.” As the emotion of the song intensified, Sacha showcased, for the first of many times during the evening, the full reach of her vocal power. She then explained that this was a classic French chanson, leaving you with a longing to drink more because that’s the one that got away.  

Following the exact tracking of Paris After Dark, Sacha then introduced and performed Sidney Bichet’s lovely and timeless jazz-blues standard “Si Tu Vois Ma Mère” (If You See My Mother),” which was popularized decades later on the soundtrack to Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris. This graceful arrangement of the ultimate American in Paris song featured the exquisite subtleties of each band member and their effortless accompaniment and thoughtful soloing – Belmondo, guitarist John Garner, her longtime pianist John Di Martino and the rhythm section of Thomas Bromerie (bass) and Clayton Cameron (drums).  

Rather than hop quickly into another number, she engaged everyone in a whimsical sermonette about the purpose of this album (celebrating a blend of cultures) via a humorous spiel about growing up really confused even if the Spanish, French, English and Arabic cultures have amazing similarities. She grew up with olive skin and dark hair, her mom was Catholic and her dad Jewish though raised Greek Orthodox. Her rhetorical question, “What kind of sandwich is that?” led to the funniest “recipe” of the night, a delicacy featuring jamon, queso, jalapenos and gefilte fish. And that’s what America is to her, a lot of different colors and flavors, a land where (in most times in history, at least) we can celebrate everybody’s culture, find points in common, bring them together to create more love. “That’s what this tour is about,” she said. “The immigrant who goes from one place to another.” In a normal political climate, these seem like kind, unifying words from a visionary artist. These days, they almost come across as defiant, speaking truth to power.

After such a personal outpouring, it made sense for Sacha to share "Paris après minuit,” her own lovely, hypnotically seductive, then playfully swinging gem, a poetic, longing tune she wrote in a mix of French and English, commonly called “franglais.” Artfully accompanied by Belmondo, the tune evolves into a folky, festive “la la la” section that gave way to a spirited horn solo before the pace picked up further at the end. This tune, coupled with her later surprise powerhouse rendition of “Those Were the Days” were the wild house party portions of the set. The latter is a onetime late 60’s Paul McCartney produced #1 hit with Russian origins. Sacha’s towering version prompted everyone, including the waiters, to wave their napkins wildly in unison.

Later in the set, she also went delightfully off-theme a few times on the heartbreaking, ultimately operatic “Solamente Una Vez” (a song she says Nancy Wilson requested Sacha sing for her), a gorgeous impromptu whirl through the theme from “The Godfather” and a fun-filled and fiery swirl through a Spanish language cha cha romp she cleverly named after herself (“Sa. Cha.Cha”).

Although those aforementioned songs offered great insight to her high-flying, humor-filled personality, elements of her personal life and her multi-faceted artistry, Sacha made sure everyone got the full Paris After Dark Experience with five other wonderful pieces from the album. The most crafty and heartrending of these is the French-English “love dance” medley of Jacque Brel’s familiar 1959 song “Ne Me Quitte Pas” and the Frank Sinatra co-write “I’m a Fool To Want You,” featuring a graceful point-counterpoint musical dialogue between the singer and Belmondo’s trumpet. On the more personal side, it was interesting to learn that Brel wrote the melody at a café exactly 287 steps down from Sacha’s residence in Paris.

And what would an album and show about Paris be without the opportunity to breathe fresh, spritely new life into the winsome Songbook standard “April in Paris”? It was exciting following along with the sweet familiar images in the lyrics as Sacha brought out deeper emotion (followed by a lively Di Martino solo) after a lighthearted beginning. Uniquely, she followed the wildfire of “Those Were the Days” with one of the starkest pieces on the album, an ominous, starkly haunting version of Cole Porter’s “In the Still of the Night” featuring Bramerie’s dark upright bass tones.

Sacha chose to cover Dalida’s torchy trilingual 1959 romance (English, French, Italian) to show admiration for and soul solidarity with the multi-cultural roots of the Egyptian born Italian naturalized French singer and actress. Sacha cheerfully immersed in the steamy sexiness of it all with flair, giving way to more surreal soloing by Di Martino and Belmondo. She closed the set amiably, with a spirited, soulfully swinging, English and French romp through “La Belle Vie,” more commonly known as the Tony Bennett staple “The Good Life.”

Thanks to Sacha’s masterful storytelling both in song and words, ‘twas the night when Paris came to Bel Air after dark, for an unforgettable and essential cross-cultural experience no one in attendance will soon forget…