Opérette Volume 2

The subtitle of this delightful album, Chansons Marseillaises 1930-1940, suggests no obvious Jamaican link. Yet Moussu T was initially inspired by Bob Marley in the 1980s and then by the Jamaican-born luminary of the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay, to explore indigenous popular songs of an era when black sailors – such as those in McKay's Banjo – helped bring jazz to Marseille. It's a fascinating melange: the joyful and sentimental music-hall songs churned out by the likes of the ‘Offenbach of chanson’, Vincent Scotto, accompanied by Jazz Age banjo, drums and sousaphone.

On ‘Les Pescadous’, an electric guitar carries the melody, but on the other dozen numbers Blu's adroit banjo picks out the tunes. Moussu T's vocals sound remarkably authentic without ever lapsing into caricature. He duets with Rosemary Standley of Moriaty on the delicious ‘J'ai Rêvé d'une Fleur’ and sings a couple of numbers in the once-forbidden southern Occitan language. The seductive good-time accompaniment rolls along, transporting one to a time when novelist Marcel Pagnol's characters lived and danced on the city's quays.