Sacha Boutros: SACHA: PARIS AFTER DARK
17th October 2025
MULTI-LINGUAL JAZZ VOCALIST AND GLOBAL CULTURAL AMBASSADOR SACHA BOUTROS REIMAGINES 100 YEARS OF POPULAR MUSIC BY FRENCH AND AMERICAN COMPOSERS
Released October 17, 2025 on Hear Me Roar Records
Using the power of music as a bridge to foster a sense of community among people from different cultures and backgrounds, jazz vocalist, composer, producer and global peace ambassador with an international following, SACHA BOUTROS, has the unique distinction of speaking seven languages and singing in 14. On SACHA: PARIS AFTER DARK, a celebration of 100 Years of French and American composers in the City of Light and Love, she taps into her deep stylistic reservoir of jazz, blues, pop and swing, and her dual love for the Great American Songbook and classic French pop. She sings in French and English (with a little Italian), featuring stylish and deeply soulful re-imaginings of pop and jazz standards written and/or popularized by, among others, Gilbert Becaud, Jacques Brel, Sidney Bechet, Sacha Distel, Joe Dassin, Cole Porter, Dalida and Serge Gainsbourg.
The 10-track collection, Boutros’ fifth full-length album, is the second in a series of After Dark recordings from the singer that began with Sacha: NY After Dark (2013) and will soon include Sacha: Las Vegas After Dark introducing Patrick Hogan, and Sacha: Mexico After Dark, the latter being an ode to her heritage on her mother’s side.
“For me, this album is a love letter to Paris, to music, to my childhood and family, and to the powerful bond between cultures,” says Boutros. “The After Dark aesthetic captures the sound and spirit of a city at night -- the music you hear in cafés, clubs, taxis, and on the streets. I’ve never been more found than when I’m lost in Paris.” Rooted in jazz yet spanning multiple genres, the project blends beloved French pop songs of the 1960s and ’70s with classic American standards, creating a soundscape that reflects the city’s vibrant energy after dark.
SACHA: PARIS AFTER DARK features a core ensemble of renowned veteran French and French/American musicians, including trumpeter STÉPHANE BELMONDO (Michel Legrand/Stéphane Grappelli, Gil Evans, Yusef Lateef), pianist FRANCK AMSALLEM (Joshua Redman, Gerry Mulligan, Ravi Coltrane), guitarist HUGO LIPPI (Samara Joy, Melody Gardot, Christian McBride), bassist THOMAS BRAMERIE (Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Dee Dee Bridgewater) and Madagascar-born drummer TONY RABESON (Toots Thielemans, Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz).
Boutros opens the album with a sensual, delightfully breezy and hypnotically percussive twist on Gilbert Becaud’s “Je Reviens Te Chercher,” a charming romantic tune about coming back to a lover many years after breaking up, which the singer calls “symbolic of the soundtrack of my childhood.” Typifying the mystique of an American in Paris, Sidney Bechet brought New Orleans to France in 1950 and two years later wrote the beautiful jazz-blues standard “Si tu Vois Ma Mère” (If You See My Mother),” which was popularized decades later on the soundtrack to Woody Allen’s film, Midnight in Paris. Boutros follows her sultry rendition of this tune with a clever French-English “love dance” medley of Jacques Brel’s 1959 song “Ne Me Quitte Pas” and the Frank Sinatra co-write “I’m a Fool To Want You,” featuring a graceful musical dialogue and arrangement between the singer and Belmondo’s trumpet in homage to Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner written by Sacha.
After breathing fresh, spritely new life into the winsome Songbook standard “April in Paris,” Boutros pops into the mid-70s for the smoky, intimate seduction of NYC born American-French pop singer Joe Dassin’s “Et si tu n’existais,” then heads back a decade for a moody take on Serge Gainsbourg’s 1963 hit “La Javanaise,” one of the most famous examples of a French chanson. It features dynamic solos by Amsellem and Lippi.
Boutros included a passionate arrangement of Charlie Chaplin’s bittersweet “Smile” – which includes an extra line, “share your joy wherever you go” – simply because it’s a ubiquitous part of life in Paris. She chose to cover Dalida’s sexy trilingual (English, French, Italian) 1959 classic “Love in Portofino” to show admiration for and solidarity with the multi-cultural roots of the Egyptian-born, Italian-naturalized French singer and actress.
Boutros closes the set with a haunting, heartbreaking version of Cole Porter’s “In the Still of the Night” (featuring Bramerie’s dark upright bass tones) and a spirited, soulfully swinging English-French romp through “La Belle Vie” (“The Good Life”) with solos by Belmondo and Amsellem.
Of Mexican and French Lebanese heritage, Boutros was raised in a European home in San Diego. A former semi-professional soccer and tennis player, she attended one of the top business schools in the U.S., graduating with honors in Marketing and International Business. She later founded a record label, production, and publishing company, establishing herself as one of the few female producers in jazz. Her production company, Hear Me Roar, curates entertainment across all genres for Fortune 500 companies and major festivals. Her recordings have topped the charts and hit #1 on iTunes, #5 on Billboard in the United States, Europe and Asia, reaching #2 on the Jazz charts in Japan and rising to #3 on the Francophile and Canadian Charts.
In 2014, Boutros founded Sacha’s Supper Club 501(c)3, the first vintage pop-up experience blending fine dining, American big band and dancing, reminiscent of the elegant New York café societies of the 1940s. In 2017, Sacha joined the Border Public Art Committee to lead a project with a team of local artists and architects as well as the consulate of Mexico and the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce. She designed a mural called “The Place Where Soles Meet” at the border of San Ysidro and Tijuana at the main pick up and drop off point where 26,000 people crossed each day. Sacha uses music as a tool to heal, connect and build community. In France Sacha is known as “La Reine du Jazz” The Jazz Queen.
SACHA: PARIS AFTER DARK is releasing on October 17, 2025 on Hear Me Roar Records and is available on CD and all streaming platforms.
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