We finally made it to the Nice Jazz Festival, after we had been talking about going since 2003. The setting was magical in the hills of the peaceful Cimiez neighborhood of Nice, among the Gallo-Roman ruins and the groves of olive trees. Our tickets gave us access to the three stages where the music continued all evening. We were handed a program when we entered so we could keep track of who was playing when and where. We started the evening on the terrace of a Festival café, where we had a light niçoise dinner while listening to Randy Crawford and Joe Sample on the piano just next door to us among the olive trees in the Scène Jardins. Then we wandered over to the Scène Matisse to listen to some Socca Jazz before heading to the Scène Arènes to listen to Sonya Kitchell. The main attraction for us was Madeleine Peyroux, who played in the ruins of the ancient amphitheatre of the Scène Arènes, where we got excellent seats for her performance. The ambiance was sensational, even if her performance was a little slower than we prefer. Things picked up quite a bit afterwards over at the Scène Jardins where we caught up with Laurent Voulzy performing his popular Rockollection song, with everyone singing and dancing along.
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