Laurent Fourgo

Special bonus today: The music in this post is not only purchasable and downloadable, but go-hear-them-live-able as well. (Assuming you live around the Bay Area.)

I had dinner last Friday at Mandaloun in Redwood City, to the music of Laurent Fourgo & His Ensemble. Lots of good, standard swing stuff, with the added interest of having French versions of lots of the lyrics. In fact, the CD (Amazon MP3, Last.fm) appears to be entirely bilingual. Anyway, they're perfectly danceable, and if you sit in the right spot you can have a little bit of floor space to hop into and dance when the mood strikes. (As long as you watch out for passing waiters, not to mention the clarinetist who would sometimes get loose and start wandering around on his solos.)

They seem to have been a hit with the rest of the customers and the management as well, since they announced that they now have a regular gig there, twice a month. Keep an eye on their calendar to find out when those will be. The restaurant itself was good as well, so all in all it makes a quite recommendable outing for a Friday evening if you're stuck without an FNW or other dancing (or even a Friday evening on your way to other dancing).