Three or so years ago our friend Petra, who enjoys giving presents for no particular reason- a thoroughly delightful habit- gave us a present of a burned CD,it had Pink Martini written on it.
My impression was that it was a compilation of various tracks that Petra had enjoyed, I recognised “ Et puis Je fume” a song which was used for some sort of ad on the tele.
The songs were of so many styles and in so many different languages that it was difficult to find a unifying thread.

It was some time after we got it first that I saw a reference to Pink martini somewhere and realised with a bit of a shock that I was listening to a CD of a single group.
And furthermore these multi lingual songs were being sung by just one singer.

It was a slow burner in our house, played at first because it seemed to provide pleasant unchallenging music, a sort of big band jazz meets a classical orchestra with world music.

It didn’t take too long before we stopped to listen to them as tafel musik and start to take them a little more seriously.
Firstly there was the singer to take into consideration.
All the solo singing was done by one China Forbes, a lady with a huge vocal and emotional range.
Then there was the man who was the musical powerhouse behind this group.
Thomas M Lauderdale,was the pianist and founder of the group.
I don’t think anyone could have invented a more romantic background for this extraordinarily talented man.
Adopted into a mixed race family in Indiana, Thomas was of unknown Asian blood. His adopted father came out of the closet when Thomas was twelve, he and his wife had a thoroughly amicable divorce and the family moved to Portland where his father was ordained a Church Pastor.
This obviously didn’t set Thomas back as he later succeeded in getting into Harvard to study Literature and history.
There he met China Forbes herself studying English Literature and Theatre. She was also (but of course) from a mixed race adopted family, her mother being Black American, her father half Scottish, half French.
These two met when he started to accompany her opera recitals on the piano, from that they decided to set up Pink Martini.
The observant among you will now begin to see where the modern, classical, sophisticated and multilingual group sprang from.

From Petra’s original present we became fans, now have another of their CDs and are soon, after last night, to get some more.
Before we headed off to Languedoc for the summer Sile did a bit of scouring of the internet and she discovered that the same band were giving a concert in Beziers, about six kilometres from Thezan, on the very week we arrived.
We booked it, and last night, in the cloisters of St Nazaire, Bezier’s cathedral we saw them perform.
It was electrifying.
A description of the various numbers would not do them justice.
Here are just a couple of moments.

They started their set with a very free version of Ravel’s Bolero which made me realise why the Catholic church banned public playing of this piece for many years.

At the end of one of the numbers when the whole group broke into a joyous rendering of “I love to go a Wandering” they were granted a mid-number standing ovation, the first I have ever seen happen in many years of concert going.

The audience (of mainly over forties, like ourselves) clapped for a good five minutes after they left they stage until we got our encore.
This was the old standard Brazil to which China Forbes invited us to dance.
There was a lot of old fat flesh doing a whole heap of sambaing and rumbaing for the following five minutes.

Beg, borrow and steal to get to one of their concerts.