Reall Collusion With France On Climate Control As Jazz Goes Viral

It felt like the clandestine days of "speak easy" but carry a big chip on one's shoulder, when underground clubs were secret hiding places during Prohibition throughout the U.S. No secret handshakes nor door knocks but every much an underground salon, where day jobs were not allowed...these are the Real Chanteuses of L.A. County- they don't resent the Blues, they are committed to singing them as a show of force, so, "En garde!" They are here to stay...and have dug their heels in with self-proclaimed "JOY."

I know for sure, jazz vocalist Maryanne Reall, had no idea Lady Gaga was on the same page in a tied score, when she opens her mouth for the first time in "A Star Is Born," singing the torch song Edith Piaf made the forever musical "mountaintop" of Martin Luther King's famed "Promised Land," the height at which a cabaret vocalist can only see the view of where one must always aspire to climb.

At a Salon de Jazz House concert, part of a series for which Reall and her husband, French antiques dealer, Jean Camille Bianic, are impresarios, jazz singers trained by Sara Leib, who trained at the two most prestigious music conservatories in New England, proved it isn't just ladies who sing the blues, but the "other" Leon, the textile designer, is giving these grand dames a run for the franc, the forerunner of Euro money, especially since Phillip Leon had the vocal chops and wisdom to make a lawyer seem lovable with his rendition of "My Attorney Bernie," and that's money in the bank, franc and frank!

One couldn't help but be swayed by songs sung with so much authentic attitude and acumen both, by women, who by daylight are a Behavioral Therapist, a Music Student and a L.A. Unified K-5 Teacher, and scat never sounded any more "all that" than performed by Alicia S. Zhao in "It Don't Mean A Thing," who, like Reall, also was scaling the chanteuse heights of the French Alps.

On piano, was Josh Nelson, who not only made his mark as one of Natalie Cole's life long musicians, he was the most smiling accompanist I've ever seen perform with a diva of jazz, and I've seen quite a few, and he had six with whom he couldn't conceal his joie de vivre. Dave Robaire was the sublime tall drink of acoustic bass.