Went looking For Esprit de Jazz: A Star IS Born-French, yet again

Stardom is elusive and is genre specific in origin...when it's jazz or classical music, it doesn't pop the same way as more mainstream music often does seem to explode whether it rocks, rolls or gushes like liquid Mercury...but stardom of the magnitude I saw at the Gardenia was even more fierce in a singer, new to THE stage, MARINA PACOWSKI.

I went at the urging of a friend we have in common, also a jazz singer, and when she mentioned her investment in supporting live jazz, I admit, I may have marginalized what she meant, in a like manner, that Marina herself made seem like low key support, when she said on stage that the French do things by storm...as a quiet type of revolution...when it became obvious to me...this was solidarity Francaise, as in the way of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite...a solidarity of equal parts of not being the same as a whole...a fusion of medicine... not a cocktail that is a double with another shot, nor the aspirin gauged for a triple strength headache.

I will not be coy...make no doubt about it...I knew it before my friend whispered, "See!" I didn't know her from Adam nor a dry dock in Marina Del Ray, but A STAR WAS BORN two nights ago at the Gardenia and my career has been all about stars...as I was a producer of creative force at the launch of CNN & ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT...I know my stars and I know how to gauge a triple threat to the stability of those stars already in their chosen fields...as singers, comedians, actresses and romantic co-stars...for those of you who can claim any one of those fields, watch out! For those who claim more- fastening your seatbelts won't be enough.

Some French chanteuse saunters up on stage and starts jabbering about something that prompted a laugh, and says,

I did not even know the words I just said, it was funny, for you, too? I was so nervous of what to say in English between songs...I only had :30 to figure out everything, and only because I checked out the audience from backstage and realized, it was you...

"And you look so good!"

I've been had and it has not been as a guy by an all "Tramp" as Frank Sinatra sang about a counter-type of this type of woman other women have called a floozy, even Leonard Bernstein said that about a woman I was with, to her face, because you can't touch talent like this...this is a girl who can't say no, who just wants to have fun with her man but as the headliner of what I do believe...though can't be sure...is a duo more like Penn & Teller, Victor Borge & Leonid Hambro, Mike Nichols & Elaine May...but even more like George & Gracie and Lucy & Desi...it is true romance and so disarming...coy and cuchi-coo like Charo, but with one main diva, whether Lucille Ball or was it Desilu...it was definitely George over Gracie...or is that the key component of the cuchi cuchi coo of Carmen Miranda and Charo...when someone is the diva and the other one is the silent type- silent can be mute like Hambro or Teller but every bit, the "plus one," as full second first course entree as is Marina's foil, Steve Cotter, who plays electric guitar, like a George Harrison classical weeper.

Can she sing? Oui oui, damn, yes, she can! Can she sing in French and English? D'accord she can too, in a deux for one follow spot. Can she scat? It was zoological, illogical, how she did that scat she did so well.

Can she foxtrot? No way was I going to ask- her silent partner, who sang once, like any "chump" in love, he'd say or sing anything, he sounded pretty good for someone all goo goo and gaga, but after I asked several probing questions, he seemed like the type of foil who suddenly would say, "En Garde!" and he's American. ...I wasn't going to get personal because he started to give me a dirty look and she was standing right next to him but I'm pretty sure I read his thoughts loud and clear.

Were you not paying attention when I tried to tune my guitar to make it even better?

He was right. She seemed ruthless. She was about to tell him it was over and I had forgotten that she virtually had said it on stage. He did try to make it better and she said to everyone in the audience...

There's tuning going on now. Take your time honey.

Then, she looked at the audience, and almost to humiliate him, said,

Everything went well until now.

In every combo of French, English, scat, arpeggio as written, in actual words, not notes like scat, but those- way too... Marina Pacowski taught me the meaning of "Coy" and "Come Hither" and Steve Cotter taught me...never feel safe. Never feel like it can't all end...not just tomorrow but on stage even sooner.

They ended their set with "Our Love Is Here To Stay." So French, so cruel, I didn't know whether to laugh or applaud I was so overwhelmed... I was starstruck.

Marina Pacowski...with Steve Cotter on electric guitar. Call the Gardenia: (323) 467-7444, as I have no idea when they're back...but when I do...I have a good mind to book all the tables before anyone else and it ain't nobody's business if I do...(not sure if I then scalp at a premium but I plan to find out.)