To make her new CD “Paris Blues,” singer Raquel Bitton began with a room full of old 78-rpm records.
Those dusty discs comprised her late father’s collection of classic French jazz — artists like Django Reinhardt, Suzy Solidor and Jean Sablon — and many decades after their recording, the music spoke to her.
It spoke of a bygone era, when war-torn Paris was a jazz center, when romance was as close as the next corner café or rainy stroll along the Rive Gauche.
Bitton’s father, Meyer Bitton, died nearly a year ago at age 86. He was a respected member of the local community, a former president of Congregation Anshey Sfard in San Francisco. But he began life in French-speaking Morocco, balancing his French, Arab and Jewish influences.
According to Bitton, music and the enduring love of his wife, Marcelle, gave Meyer Bitton’s life much of its meaning and fire. That’s why she felt compelled to make “Paris Blues.”
“That was the most incredible period in my parents’ life,” says the San Rafael resident. “Despite the tragic war, there was a powerful romance. I thought that in recapturing each great composer, I could recapture the mood of my parents.”
The 11-track CD features a full orchestra with arrangements by Bob Holloway, a striking cover illustration (by Grammy Award-winning artist Martin French) and songs made famous by the likes of Billie Holliday, Sydney Bechet and Portuguese fado singer Amalia Rodrigues. Bitton sings mostly in French, often with the trilled R’s made famous by Argentine tango master Tino Rossi.
“I never pick a song unless I go back to its roots and research what was happening in the world at the time,” says Bitton. “I wanted to pay tribute to those people who came to the City of Lights to mend their broken hearts. I chose those people who made an enormous impact on the music of Paris shortly before, during and after the war.”
As a baby boomer, Bitton missed that experience herself. She was born in Morocco but moved to California as a teen. As a child of the ’60s, she admits she was a bit of a rebel, musically and otherwise, but later came back to the music of her parents.
Over the last several years she became a respected interpreter of the music of the great French chanteuse Edith Piaf, even performing an all-Piaf show at Carnegie Hall. Bitton also recorded six albums, much of the material culled from the golden age of French song.
Like her father before her, Bitton also juggled her French and Jewish roots. She ended up marrying “a nice Jewish boy from Boston” — Gerald Prolman, the founder of organicbouquet.com, an online florist. He is also active in his wife’s career, having co-executive produced the new CD. The couple has two children, both of whom attended Brandeis Hillel Jewish Day School.
Bitton sees her Jewish roots as an asset in her profession, given the kind of songs she sings. “I am a storyteller,” she says. “I never embrace a song unless it has a story, and a marvelous one. Who better to tell it than a Jewish person?”
Last summer, Bitton took her 15-year-old daughter Natalie along on a research trip to Europe. They visited the old haunts of the great musicians, trying to absorb as much of the atmosphere as possible. Though her kids are part of the hip-hop generation, Bitton says both think her music is “pretty cool.”
“Honor thy father and mother” is a mitzvah that runs in the family, especially in Bitton’s case. While her affection for the music couldn’t be greater, Bitton says this CD was for Mom and Dad.
“My joy was right in front of me,” she says. “I had a great inspiration: two lovers who happened to be my parents. They married for love and were always in love. Even in their old age, we would say to them, ‘Hey, get a room.'”
“Paris Blues” by Raquel Bitton is available at all major record stores and online at amazon.com.