The story of five unlikely comrades on the road, forever touring, searching for love, meaning, and more red wine …

JOLIE EVA VON SAVIGNY - chant / piano

Jolie Eva is the maestra of the orchestra, a former cabaret singer originally from an upper-class family in Berlin. It has been said that she was a great inspiration for Marlene Dietrich. Jolie Eva always claims that her move to Paris in the pre-World War I era was in the pursuit of happiness, but the real reason why she chose to leave behind what seemed a rich and prosperous life in Germany, nobody knows - and no one dares to ask her either. In Paris she met the love of her life and future husband: The famous, legendary, French pianist Marcel M. The two performed countless salon concerts together, and were immensely popular in the bourgeois Paris. But then came the war. Marcel was inevitably called out to the front, and shortly after lost his life. Jolie Eva was devastated. The life of a widow was not easy, especially not a as German widow, and in order to make ends meet, she had to keep doing the only thing she could do. Sing. But without Marcel. She gathered a motley bunch of musicians, all with their own cruel fates like hers, and she now tries to feed herself and the four gentlemen as best as she can. She always carries with her the little red piano that Marcel gave her for their wedding. And all she ever thinks of, and all she lives for, is him and the memory of the great love they once shared, like a prisoner of the past.

DOMINIQUE DE BRAQUAVAL-EN-VALISE - chant / trombone

Dominique de Braquaval-en-Valise is a former circus artist and circus musician and no one really knows who he is, or where he hails from. Le Couteau suspects that he is an internationally sought-after Belgian, and that his pompous last name is purely fictitious, but Don Johan has urged him, almost threateningly, to keep these theories to himself. Dominique jumped off the circus life immediately after seeing and hearing Jolie Eva and the orchestra playing in Paris, where his circus was also performing at the time. He fell for the German singer, and since then he has done everything in his power to win her heart. All he ever does, he does to impress her, so that she might see him, might choose him. Everything. Absolutely everything - but all Jolie Eva thinks about, cares for, and lives for, is her late, unforgettable, beloved husband. Dominique is quite the charmeur, totally unreliable and a bit of a kleptomaniac - everything he has and owns and wears and plays on, he has thieved. He has great thoughts about himself, and great ambitions, and he constantly dreams of becoming like his great hero, Maurice Chevalier. Unfortunately, he always ends up looking more like Charlie Chaplin's unknown little brother. He is part clown, part artist, part dancer, part poet, part chansonnier, part musician - a little bit of everything - but unfortunately, success is never really on his side in any of what he does.

DON JOHAN - accordéon

Don Johan, the Norwegian of Norwegians, previously had vague and shrouded connections to the famed Norwegian Meat Mafia in Western Norway. He ran a magnificent mountain farm at Voss, with visitors from all over the world, but when the French artist Margot de Nîmes performed at Stalheim Hotel in the fall of 1913, his life changed forever. It was un coup de foudre for both of them - love at first sight. When she reluctantly had to move on, she gifted him her red accordion so that he might never forget her. She could not give him the whole of her red heart, for there was someone else who had already claimed it, someone who waited impatiently for her in her home country - with a wedding ring on his finger. In 1918, when the Great War was finally over, Don Johan left for France with his beloved accordion, to find his Margot again, to make her choose him this time, and he has since been on an unending quest for his great, lost love. He manages his grief and wait as best he can with two other great passions: La chanson française and Château Margaux, of course.

LE COUTEAU - guitare / chant

Le Couteau never talks about his past. He will only say that he is an authentic gypsy, crazy and dangerous, with a ton of unespeakable sins in his wake - but the others suspect a softer side to him, and that he might actually have a completely different life story, one that he will not speak of. He never laughs, rarely smiles. And speaks very little, probably because he is ashamed of his perpetually boyish voice. Le Couteau stubbornly states that he is the predecessor of the great Django Reinhardt, that he is the real originator of the Gypsy Jazz, and not Monsieur Reinhardt, and that his ideas were stolen from him. He always carries his knife with him - le couteau. Théo knows that the knife saved his life a long time ago, when he was just a kid. But Théo doesn't tell anyone. Can't tell anyone. Can't talk. However, everyone knows that Le Couteau panics if he doesn't have the knife on him, with him, next to him. The whole orchestra feels safer when he is present, especially Jolie Eva. But again, Théo knows that the dynamic is somewhat different: Le Couteau is the one that feels the safest when he’s around the orchestra, and especially near big, small Théo.

THÉO - contrebasse

Théo comes from one of the most distinguished families in Paris, with bloodlines to the early French kings. He has, however, not been in touch with a single one of his relatives for many years. Rumor has it they gave him the double bass and a few valuable heirlooms, and then sent him out the door the day he turned 16. He doesn't talk, he can't talk, so it's hard to tell what he’s been through since, or what actually happened back then. Only Jolie Eva really knows. It was she who found him wandering restlessly down the Seine, at Pont Marie, with the double bass on his back, a summer evening many years back. The two are like brother and sister now, like family, and Théo is always by Jolie Eva's side, wherever she is. He loves everything big, like his double bass, and adores everything that sprouts and grows, everything from flowers and plants and trees, birds and butterflies. And baguettes and croissants. He may at times appear as if he’s not completely present, but he is. Very present. In his own way. He always looks smart, with bowties in all the colors of the rainbow. Big and strong. And the kindest and most peace-loving person on this earth.