On a freezing Paris night, there are few better antidotes than soul music. Durand Jones & The Indications returned to the capital for their biggest Paris show to date, and the calendar offered a fitting coincidence: Valentine’s Day. You could not script a more appropriate alignment.
For younger fans who missed the golden age of artists like Bobby Womack or the lush Philadelphia sound of The Delfonics, there is no need for nostalgia by proxy. Durand Jones & The Indications are not an imitation of that lineage: they inhabit it naturally. Their music is gently funky, romantic, sensual and impeccably performed by a unit that is both tight and elastic, locked in without ever sounding mechanical.
Durand Jones himself is the archetypal soul frontman. He has the spins, the slides and the handkerchief flourishes down pat, but those are surface details. The voice is what counts, a deep, reassuring croon on the ballads and a soaring head voice when the groove demands lift. Drummer Aaron Frazer provides a second center of gravity, stepping forward with a falsetto that lands squarely in the chest. When the entire band stacks their harmonies above the rhythm section’s steady pulse, the effect is almost devotional. This is music that breathes. No programmed sheen, no synthetic gloss. Just a heartbeat.
The set drew generously from their excellent new album Flowers while revisiting earlier favorites without fanfare. There was no single defining moment because the entire performance felt like a slow building release, from intimate, candlelit numbers to barn burning grooves that had the room swaying in unison. On a night built for romance, Durand Jones & The Indications offered something rarer than nostalgia: a music that lives, sweats and heals.
