Jessica Fichot and Le Chat Lunatique

Tickets are $12 in advance, $13 day of show.
The price is inclusive of all fees.  In the event of a cancellation, the $1 ticketing fee is not refunded.

Tickets are also available through Hold My Ticket (112 2nd St SW), 505-886-1251, Monday to Friday, 11 AM-6 PM.

SHOWTIMES:

8:00 PM: Jessica Fichot
9:45 PM: Le Chat Lunatique

Chanteuse and songwriter Jessica Fichot [web site | Amazon.com] is a lot like her hometown of Paris: French at heart, but with a soul that's truly international. Her multi-ethnic French / Chinese / American upbringing colors the songs on her debut album. It's called Le Chemin, "The Path," and for good reason: Jessica takes the listener on a twisting journey out of the French chanson tradition, into the lands of gypsy jazz, Chinese and Latin American folk music, through the classic American repertoire, and off into the wilderness of her imagination.

For her, the journey has been a natural one. Born in the U.S. to a French father and a Chinese mother, Jessica was raised in France in a multicultural environment. A youth spent playing music in Parisian coffeehouses and concert halls led her first to graduate from the School of Audio Engineering in Paris and then from Berklee College of Music in Boston. School was followed by a stint writing children's music for educational programs—her work includes over a hundred songs published in over a dozen countries—and later, for television. When Jessica moved to California, she began writing the songs that would eventually form the backbone of her new album. 

The album's center lies with her sophisticated writing and pure, beautiful vocals—sung mostly in French and English, along with some Chinese and Spanish—as well as her piano and accordion playing. She also enlisted over 20 musicians to give each of her songs just the right mood...sometimes intimate, sometimes epic. 

Following the success of her first release, Jessica Fichot has brought her songs to audiences in France, China, Mexico, Canada and across the U.S. Her EP Le Secret was released in 2010. Jessica's live act is a musical excursion not to be missed.

As unpredictable, fearless, and entertaining as their namesake, Le Chat Lunatique [web site | Amazon.com] purveys an addictive genre they call "filthy, mangy jazz," a signature sound that makes you want to smoke and drink too much—if only you could get off the dance floor. Le jazz hot of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli is their north star, but they use that beacon to navigate through a wide range of genres, blending Western swing, classical, reggae, doowop, and "anything else we damn well please" into strikingly original compositions and audaciously reworked standards alike.

The group began prowling the nightspots of Albuquerque—that secret haven of hot jazz—back in 2005, spontaneously impregnating the ears of unsuspecting audience members, who found themselves unable to stop listening or dancing or making merry. From their earliest gigs, Le Chat Lunatique has offered swinging originals with ear-snagging hooks and stories to tell—well-constructed little gems that propagate earworms for ongoing pleasure. Devilishly clever lyrics offer insight into l’amour (“falling in love is like eating tacos”), a louche paean to a doting milllionairess (“Buy me a Cadillac, buy me a yacht / Buy me everything that I haven’t got”), minatory observations on fate (“the bus of God will run you over”), and the inevitable bitterness of a broken heart (“Miss Lady . . . please do me the courtesy of drinking in some other gin joint”). They’ve won award after award annually for best band, best jazz act,and best song. Their irreverent humor, their intensity, and their expert musicianship will soon win them your acclamation as the best time you've ever had in public with your clothes on.