Friday, July 10, 2015 From 6:00 PM To 11:00 PM Add to Calendar 2015-07-10 18:00:00 2015-07-10 23:00:00 Bastille Day Party 2015 40th anniversary celebration promises to be the best block party the Back Bay has ever seen. Marlborough Street (between Berkeley and Clarendon), Boston, Massachusetts, United States America/New_York

At Marlborough Street (between Berkeley and Clarendon)

In Advance

$28

At the Gate

$35

The French Cultural Center's Bastille Day Party returns to Marlborough Street on Friday, July 10th and will transport you to Paris with the most authentic music, food, drinks and atmosphere. After a sold-out event in 2014, this year’s 40th anniversary celebration promises to be the best block party the Back Bay has ever seen. The line-up, programmed by World Music/CRASHarts, showcases two stellar francophone acts: Paris Combo, a piquant Parisian band mixing French pop, jazz, cabaret, gypsy, Latino and Middle Eastern rhythms and The Hot Sardines, a Franco-American sensation with dazzling and inventive sounds that will electrify the crowds with their hot jazz. Back Bay's beautiful Marlborough Street will be blocked off between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets to accommodate 2,000 revelers dancing in the street. Delicious French food from some of Boston's best French restaurants and drinks, including beer & wine, will be available for sale. The French Cultural Center Bastille Day will be a party in true French style with live music and dancing in celebration of community, cultural diversity, and friendship between nations.

The Line-Up

Paris Combo

Four albums and a decade spent touring the globe playing to enthusiastic audiences from Sydney to San Francisco and Berlin to Beirut have enabled Paris Combo to create its own unique world, establishing itself as one of the most piquant, intriguing groups on the international music scene. Fronted by the mischievous vocals of chanteuse Belle du Berry, the combo has struck a positive chord with critics and audiences for their fun-loving mix of jazz, French pop, cabaret, gypsy, Latino and Middle Eastern rhythms. Best known for their smash hit "Living Room," the band has also received critical acclaim; the Washington Post calls them "engaging, clever and cutting by turns…Paris Combo has carved out a truly distinctive niche for itself…"

In 2010, after an extended sabbatical, the group worked together for over a year composing and arranging new songs and re-discovering their own distinctive group sound. At the end of 2011, Paris Combo made an exclusive comeback appearance at the Hollywood Bowl and began performing across France, Europe and the Middle East. The quintet is back with their fifth studio recording, simply titled 5.

The Hot Sardines

The Hot Sardines have a distinctive recipe for making musical magic: take a blustery brass lineup, layer it over a rhythm section led by a stride-piano virtuoso, and tie it all together with a frontwoman who sings in both English and French–oh, and don't forget the tap dancer. This unique band plays "hot jazz" with a mischievous twist of French culture, fusing musical influences from New York, Paris, and New Orleans, from the Prohibition era through WWII and beyond. Forbes Magazine calls them "one of the best jazz bands in NYC today," while Vanity Fair applauds their "unique repertoire, and a sound and style that are distinctly their own."

The Hot Sardines began to form in 2007, eventually expanding to include Evan "Bibs" Palazzo (piano), Miz Elizabeth (lead vocals), Jason Prover (trumpet), Alex Raderman (percussion), Nick Myers (clarinet/saxophone), and Evan Crane (upright bass/sousaphone). In 2011, after playing mostly small venues in the NYC jazz circuit, they got their big break playing a Bastille Day celebration at Lincoln Center. Since then, the Hot Sardines have performed to sold out audiences at New York’s famed Joe’s Pub, the Top of the Standard (Boom Boom Room), the Montreal Jazz Festival, and Symphony Hall in Boston, where they recently collaborated with the Boston Pops.

About Bastille Day

Bastille Day, France's national holiday, is celebrated on July 14th, commemorating the storming of the Bastille prison on that day in 1789. The holiday celebrates the people's uprising against the monarchy and espouses the three pillars of the French republic: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.