Les Yeux Noirs

With an infectious combination of gypsy, swing jazz and klezmer rhythms, this Paris-based octet inspires audiences to get up and dance to their exhilarating, joyful music. Described by some as the Jewish Gipsy Kings, the group is led by two fiddle-playing brothers who combine violin, accordion and electric guitar into a dizzying vortex of European sounds.

Performance playlist:

Hora Rapide

Yankele

Joc De Loop

Calusul

Rozinkes

Kolo

Tchorba

Voz iz Gevein

Djelem

Yiddishe Mame

Hora de Mina

Sanie Cu Zurgalei

Ljuba

Guene Roma

Liebkeit

Tchaye

LES YEUX NOIRS have carved their own path down the road of Yiddish and Gypsy music, supported by a growing audience. Inspired by different influences, Les Yeux Noirs invite us to share in moments of intense emotion and indescribable joy, as they weave their magic with extraordinary energy. Both joyous and nostalgic, this nomadic music perfectly reflects the lives of a persecuted people in exile, caught up in a massive Diaspora, all with an unshakeable will to live.
Les Yeux Noirs have widened their original base out of the comfortable networks of cultural centers and theaters, conquering new venues worldwide: reggae, jazz and classic festivals, Californian biker clubs, churches and smoky cellars… Meeting these different audiences, the band has fulfilled their dreams and revealed its multiple facets.
Their most recent album tChorba (“soup”) is made up of these contrasting experiences. It gathers various ingredients that were recorded, co-produced and mixed by the colorful Stuart Bruce (Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin, Al di Meola, Amadou & Maryam, Susheela Raman, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, etc.) Self-produced by the band for the first time, this album includes some songs in French as well as rich and heady atmospheres that are just like these very eyes.