Acclaimed Balladeer Jean-Paul Vignon Recalls Classic Nightclub Era in New Show
French-American entertainer Jean-Paul Vignon first stepped on to a U.S. stage at the famed Blue Angel nightclub in New York. The year? 1963, and his co-headliner on that bill? A then rising comic named Woody Allen. Vignon will fondly recall his years during that halcyon nightclub era in his new show, If We Only Have Love: A Musical Evening of Romance in English and French, which will premiere Thursday, December 8 at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood.
For decades, a sophisticated night on the town in most cities across the U.S. would include dressing up for dinner & dancing followed by a "razzle-dazzle" stage show starring an entertainer, like Vignon, whom one would have recently seen on television programs like The Ed Sullivan Show, Merv Griffin or Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. It's the swanky cocktail-driven era that TV's Mad Men, and the new Warren Beatty directed Rules Don't Apply have recently brought to life.
Though Vignon had been a popular performer in his native France during the late 1950's and 1960's (starring in two films during the French New Wave, recording hit records and performing alongside entertainers including Edith Piaf and Jaques Brel) when he landed in New York he was basically starting over. His Blue Angel appearance generated enough attention to get him a booking on The Tonight Show, and then a big break when Ed Sullivan invited him to appear on his show 8 times within a year. Soon Maurice Chevalier was praising him in interviews, Columbia Records signed him to an exclusive recording contract and even the movies came calling with the opportunity to act alongside William Holden.
For the next two decades, regular appearances on television kept him in the public eye and also, happily, a frequent presence in showrooms across the country from Le Maisonette in New York to the Drake Hotel in Chicago, the Eden Roc in Miami Beach (with Frank Sinatra ringside), and the Riviera in Las Vegas.
It's the music that populated his act during that era that forms the heart of his new show If We Only Have Love -- songbook standards and love songs in English and French from Frank Loesser, Michel Legrand, Johnny Mercer & Charles Trenet amongst others, unabashedly romantic tunes that Vignon revels in performing.
Though nightclubs no longer power the music scene throughout the country, there's been a renaissance of sorts in showrooms like Michael Feinstein's clubs in New York and San Francisco, the Empire Room at the Palmer House in Chicago and Hollywood's Catalina Jazz Club where Vignon will return to the stage on December 8 to put a new spin on some classic material. Here's hoping we get to see him again on stages across the country as well.
Jean-Paul Vignon appears Thursday, December 8 at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood. Doors open at 7:00 pm for cocktails or dinner; showtime is 8:30 pm. For reservations call (323)466-2210 or catalinajazzclub.com
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