Armed with her accordion and an angelic, jovial voice, Los Angeles–based chanteuse Jessica Fichot will appear at the Live Oak Festival with her quartet band and an eclectic set list that takes inspiration from her broad cultural roots. This is not her first time in Santa Barbara; previous years saw her play at both the French Festival and the I Madonnari Festival. Fichot and company will add an international flair to the already sonically diverse lineup that is set to perform throughout the three-day event.
Fichot’s music — French chanson infused with hints of gypsy jazz and international folk — has won the hearts of live audiences across the globe. Critics aren’t immune to her enchanting sounds, either, with praise for her discography coming from L.A. Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, and KCRW. Her two full-length releases — Le Chemin in 2007 and Le Secret in 2012 — maintained the whimsical, spontaneously delightful tone that characterizes Fichot’s brand of chanson while allowing for occasional detours into other genres.
However, she took the musical equivalent of an extended vacation on the 2014 EP Dear Shanghai, capturing the popular sounds of early-20th-century Shanghai. Of the seven tracks, the majority are covers of her favorite tunes from that era; the rest, Fichot said, are originals composed “as if they were written in the ’40s in Shanghai.” That style of music is called shidaiqu, described as a mix of European-style jazz and Chinese singing. Her adoration for shidaiqu goes beyond aesthetic enjoyment. “It was not just about me singing Chinese songs,” Fichot explained. Due to Shanghai’s international, specifically French, influence in its history, “there were a lot of similarities between the music that influenced my French chanson and this music from Shanghai,” she said. Even Fichot’s preferred accordion shows up in both genres. So despite the familiarity her audience has with her talents as a chanteuse, she ultimately concluded, “It felt right to do this album.”