This is probably not the first time he has said the sentence. But the joke, which isn’t actually a joke, is still so good that the audience in the jazz cellar Le Petit Journal in Paris laughs and approves of it. The next song they would play, explains trombonist François Mayer, comes from the composer Irving Berlin, “I lost my heart in Dixieland” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/. “We particularly like it in our orchestra gladly, he composed until he was 98 years old – of course that leaves us with a little hope “.
Mayer is 95 years old, but has more than enough breath to perform for three hours. The rest of the band, which carries the swing feeling into the Parisian night, lives up to the name of the band: “Dixieland Seniors” is what the musicians call themselves, so the song by Irving Berlin fits twice.
Dixieland music originated when white musicians mimicked New Orleans jazz. Mayer and his troupe lost their hearts to this genre of music from the 1920s. The autodidact plays in the tail gate trombone style. It developed when jazz bands were playing in open carriages through the streets to advertise concerts at the beginning of the 20th century. At the very back, where the car flap – in English “tail gate” – was lowered, the trombonist could perform his trombone move without disturbing his bandmates. “They were amateur musicians,” explains Mayer: “In order to play the notes correctly, they started the note a little too low and then worked their way up until they got the note just right.” Mayer also loves these glissandi.
Art Nouveau glass, dark wood, springy, deep red carpet: the Dixieland Seniors perform in the tiny cellar club Le Petit Journal.
(Photo: Evelyn Pschak von Rebay)
The game is played in a tiny basement club with a capacity of around 60 people. There has been live jazz here since 1971. Stars from France have already performed in the club, such as the chansonnier and jazz guitarist Sacha Distel, but also international jazz greats such as the bebop drummer Kenny Clarke. But they didn’t have more space either – the club brochure already advertises with the legendary “So-close-to-genius-like-never” -close: “Here, the closeness between musicians and audience promises evenings full of exchange,” is due read. And really: as soon as Mayer pulls out his trombone slide, his bell already bores into the audience at the nearest table, where Mayer’s whiskey-cola glass is in the midst of the guests for refreshment between the pieces. Only with a “gorgée de whiskey”, a hint of alcohol, he emphasizes. Otherwise the performance will suffer.
And after all, the Parisian, born in 1925, is not alone on stage, but with his Dixieland Seniors. Six other musicians will contest the evening with the 95-year-old, the other five men, like Mayer, wear red suspenders, red bow ties, and some even wear red socks. The only woman at the banjo is wearing a red scarf. You would work on a balanced gender ratio, Mayer assures at the microphone in a skilful middle thing of sighs and smiles: “But I admit, there is still room for improvement.”
The red accessories on the musicians’ outfits refer to the colors of the academic year of the elite university École polytechnique – simply called X in French – where Mayer began his engineering studies in 1945 – and co-founded a jazz band.
There are quite a few French historians among the college’s graduates. Including three French presidents alone, for example Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, whom Mayer called a friend. Mayer made a career as an engineer. At that time, the family man had no time to pull out the trumpet. But when the 50th anniversary of the start of studies was approaching in 1995, the then student combo was asked to play the old jazz at the festivities. Of eight members, six had got together again, the Parisian recalls: “And it worked so well that we decided to continue.” As Dixieland Seniors, everyone was in their seventies by now. And of course because the word Dixieland has an “X” in its name, like the engineering school.
The band has been playing in the bar since 1997, which has a special charm
In 1996 the jazz seniors got their chance in the Petit Journal: “An offer to play in the Berlin Philharmonie could not have pleased us any more,” says Mayer of the beginnings. Since 1997 the band has played regularly in this bar, which has its own charm: Art Nouveau glass, dark wood, springy, deep red carpet. François Mayer, co-founder and band leader of the group, is now the last polytechnician of the original formation from 1946.
Sometimes members drop out because it becomes too taxing for them. Or they die, or rather join “Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet in the musicians’ paradise”, as the jazz musicians put it on the cover of their fifth album, which was released in 2021. But there are new ones, such as the French clarinetist Alain Marquet, born in 1942, whom Mayer did not even dare to ask. “They might as well have suggested that I ask Roger Federer if he wouldn’t play tennis with me at Wimbledon,” jokes Mayer, throwing his arms up theatrically. But Marquet agreed.
And now lead trumpeter Daniel Pélissier is playing a call-and-response with Alain Marquet, as the characteristic call-answer pattern is called in jazz: Marquet’s clarinet provides a melodic motif that sometimes sounds like a question. Pélissier answers with his trumpet. The other musicians nod approvingly in time until they start again: Philippe Jamet on drums, Sandrik de Davrichewy on piano, the couple Hélène and Marc Chevaucherie on banjo (she) and tuba (he).
Every now and then, says Mayer, Daniel Barda drops in at rehearsals, a childhood friend of Pélisser’s – and one of the most important jazz trombonists in France. He initially came to give the band advice, remembers François Mayer. “So I asked him – as an autodidact on the trombone – whether it made sense to start teaching at my age.” When Barda said yes, he immediately hired him as a teacher. “And he completely changed the way I play.” He made so much progress, especially between the ages of 80 and 86. “When you’re a bit older,” he flirted, “and everything actually gets worse, whether it’s eyesight or the musculoskeletal system, and then there is one thing in which you suddenly get better – that cheers you up!”
Every second Wednesday of the month there is a Dixieland Seniors concert in Le Petit Journal, the next on September 8th – one day before François Mayer’s 96th birthday. Le Petit Journal, 71 Boulevard Saint-Michel, starts at 9 p.m., admission is free. Reservations under Tel .: 0033-1 43 26 28 5
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