Fresh is the breeze I encounter as I exit my car after Google Maps tried to convince me the Kingston Butter Factory was in the Kingston train station car park!
I guess the Google Maps car hasn't been around these parts lately. . . the venue has a new car park entry, which looks pretty schmick by the way.Today (28 August), I'm looking forward to Pauline Maudy, a French-Sephardic singer who has been winning awards for her performances across the country, showcasing her glorious pipes through her Take Me To Paris show.
I enter the newly refurbished Kingston Butter Factory. It is looking very contemporary and light and bright inside. I move past art exhibits through double doors to take my seat inside the ambient and much darker Butterbox Theatre, with its large stage adorned with lighting rigs and a real brick wall for the backdrop.
It is here that Maudy will share her tales about growing up between Paris and the land down under.
Maudy actually kicks off somewhere in the middle by sharing that people who have travelled to Paris, tell her they "either adore it or that they were robbed and left knocked out in a back alley somewhere", and apologises if that was the case but laughs and states that we probably wouldn't be here if that was the latter. We all chuckle.
The show opens with 'Sympathique', Maudy sitting at a small round café table and chair on a riser on the stage. She rises from her chair and projects her voice more – I am hearing the greats of the jazz vocalists echoing in the notes of Maudy's smooth and elegant introductory song.
Image © Clea-marie Thorne
We remain silent and intent, while soaking up the ambiance of Maudy and she moves to stand and sing with her talented ensemble: Mircha Mangiacotti (guitar), Peta Leigh Wilson (piano/ keys) Emma Hales (cello/ double bass), Robert Fontana (trumpet) who are on the stage beside the riser and guest appearances from Mzaza's Greta Kelly (shah keman/ violin).
The crowd are giving a hearty applause as Maudy takes a diary in hand and perches on the edge of the riser (she does this a few times during the show).
A single light beam illuminates her as she eloquently tells us that by the tender age of 13, she was intimate with every piece of pavement in her French home town, and each day on the way to school she would ride on the back of her dad's motorbike and they would stop and buy fresh oven-baked treats from the bakery on the way.
We believe her when she says she felt safe and warm under the Paris sky as the band start to lead her into 'Sous le ciel de Paris' – a fitting title from a movie of the same name. With gentle and bright keys, and strings highlighted with short brass notes, I can feel the wind in my hair as I imagine myself riding pillion passenger on the back of a moped. I catch myself smiling as if I were. Edith Piaf, move over!
Image © Clea-marie Thorne
Maudy recounts that in 1994 she is told they are moving to a perfect home in Australia and very swiftly after this news she finds that she is rehoming her turtle, and their belongings are packed onto a ship and punters get an original Song 1, in French.
We are told of the challenges of learning and understanding a different language and Maudy is confessing her discovery of mondegreens by explaining how she couldn't work out why Elton John wrote a song about Tony Danza, and that she thought Annie Lennox sang "sweet dreams are made of cheese".
Maudy tells us as a young girl she would sing all the songs and some of her favourite vocalists were Ella Fitzgerald and Debra Harry. Nawwe. This is a nice lead into an amazing cover of Arthur Hamilton's 'Cry Me A River', first recorded by Julie London and of course covered by the great Ella Fitzgerald.
Maudy, making the song hers, has her audience enchanted by her sultry vocals and the band had our heads and torso gently swaying in our seats.
The way Maudy conveys emotion is incredible – she is holding the notes, sustaining them with great power that is also silky smooth weaving between the thick texture of the instruments and when joined together it cascades over us and we know we are getting a memorable show.
Between songs she imparts insights into her experiences in Australia and visits back to France (no spoilers!) and at times takes a seat on the riser from which she opened the show as if to read those experiences from a young girl's diary. These memoirs are shared then followed by songs that reflect her recollections or that were created from them.
Image © Clea-marie Thorne
Maudy's vocals are outstanding and impeccably executed as we can feel emotion from every note carried on her breath. 'Beauty' and 'You Me And The Cosmos', 'Wind Phone', 'She Soars' and '40 Days' are original songs that we get to enjoy.
These are peppered between carefully selected classics 'Complainte de la Butte' (Rufus Wainwright), 'Poinçonneur des Lilas' (Serge Gainsborough), 'La vie en Rose' (Edith Piaf/ Louis Guglielmi) and an upbeat and super sultry version of 'The Letter' (The Box Tops/ Wayne Carson). Maudy really turned on the rock for this one and let those vocals loose.
The dynamic instrumentation of Maudy's accompanying musicians playing beautifully and harmoniously behind her birthed such glorious sounds that infused the atmosphere in the theatre with intense feeling. We journeyed along the melody of Maudy's vocals and enjoyed the harmonies of the music.
After 13 songs, Maudy and the band take a very quick absence from the stage – we are asked to pick our own adventure and if we feel like two songs or three songs, after all it is still only the afternoon, encore. Someone, yells out "five!" and we wonder for a moment if Maudy may try to sing this one in Italian after a bit of banter with Mangiacotti on stage.
Image © Clea-marie Thorne
'J'attendrais' is our first encore and the horn solo is totally delicious and Fontana gets a big clap before Wilson makes her fingers expertly dance over the piano keys for a second solo and we show her our appreciation too.
'Je me suis fait tout petit' is our second encore song and Maudy indicates to us that special guests will be joining her on stage after this one. Following a loud applause – Kelly is welcomed back on stage to perform with the band and the other special guests are workshop participants who crash-learned two songs in an hour!
Maudy has chosen them to perform the 1964 French pop song 'Laisse Tomber le Filles' a banger in its time, written by creative Serge Gainsbourg. The strings in this have hips moving in seats and necks snaking to the folky-pop rhythms.
At the end of this song, Maudy wants the workshop participants to come up with a band name – there is a pause before someone pipes up: "We Love To Sing", and Maudy runs with this outburst and dubs them the We Love To Sing Band. Giving thanks to the We Love To Sing Band and her 'Take Me To Paris' band there is very loud clapping and whoops delivered to Maudy and her cast of many.
Image © Clea-marie Thorne
There is much chatter among punters as the Butterbox Theatre empties into the Butter Factory foyer where fans can meet and chat with Maudy and the band.
Maudy ignited our imaginations tonight and to be honest awakened the travel bug within through her sharing her high and low adventures, fuelled by six original songs and ten exquisitely executed covers.
Maudy is simply infectious. Her storytelling is engaging. Her voice sublime. There is no doubt the lady has pipes plus, but I am not convinced the world would have access to the inventive musical offerings Maudy has created if she were born here instead.
It is evident that Maudy embraces her roots, celebrates her Australian life and continues to live and draw from the two countries and the space in between.
Her performance this afternoon created a window in your mind's eye where you could peak through lace café curtains at a rolling film of her shared life encounters to a beautifully curated soundtrack full of emotion.
More photos from the show.
