WHAT MAKES A SINGER " A CABARET CHANTEUSE"?

Photos from L to R: #1. A view of an old and traditional Cabaret “Salle” of La Belle Epoque (19^th century-early 20^th century). #2. The Lido Cabaret poster.

A female singer who sings “Ne me quittes pas” or “La vie en rose” does not categorically become a Cabaret singer! Sensually grabbing a microphone…wearing a long black satin gown…leaning against a pianist or a chair strategically positioned on stage or against a baby grand…personifying Edith Piaf or Marlene Dietrich…wearing a top hat…a hairdo a la Parisienne “Des Annees Folles”,  singing the songs of Weil, Jean Constantin, Sacha Guitry, Jean Cocteau, Barbara, George Brassens, Jacques Brel, Charles Dumont, Maurice Chevalier, Patachou, Danielle Darrieux, Cole Porter, Gershwin and Sondheim don’t create a cabaret, nor a cabaret singer. To learn about Bouzouki and to sail into the soul of its music and inner sensations, you don’t have to read about it in the Art Section of The New York Times or research its aspect at the Library of Congress. A simple, uneducated, regular peasant or islander in Greece knows more about Bouzouki than all the Ph.D.s in music and music history at Harvard, Princeton and Yale. If you want to feel and understand Bouzouki, just ask a Greek, a very ordinary national Greek who grew up in Greece, as simple as that. Ask a Greek Bouzoukist who spent all his life praying for Ayou Alexandrou (St. Alexander), drinking Ouzo and playing the Bouzouki in his house, in the narrow streets of Pyrrhea, La Placa, on the shores of Crete, or around a dusty corner of a Greek Taverna. This ordinary native Greek who grew up with Bouzouki, listened to Bouzouki all his/her life and danced the Sirtaki since he/she was 4 year old knows more about Bouzouki than you and me. By the time he/she was 10, he/she has already earned his/her Ph.D. in “Bouzouki Real Life Musiki”. Life taught  him/her what Bouzouki is. He/she was an inner part of it on a daily basis.  It is a part of his/her culture, heritage, history, national pride and traditions. French Cabaret Chanteuses feel the same way.