They call it the jazz district. At heart of the exquisite mix of dirt and culture called Paris, past an avenue of pillars, dark alleyways and bins. St Denis. I know it well.
We hired a flat in Rue de Palestra in the Easter of 2010 for a family holiday.
Cheeses named after saints sigh their wafts from nearby Rue Montorgueil where a giant golden snail declares sovereignty over endless food stores and restaurants.
The family are in hysterics. After a battle of fromage, pate and sticks of bread and my couple of heady glasses of vin rouge we are off sight seeing.
With Tintin in my mind and poor O level French on my lips I hail a cab - "A le sacre bleu" I demand.
The driver is either too stunned or hasn't the heart to correct me as we speed off to le Sacre Coeur
ahead of an encounter with Dali and failed resistance to beautiful cakes.
In the evening a ten minute walk takes us to the New Morning jazz club to see James Carter. Dark, unswept, furnished like a second hand shop in the sales. It's dominated by an overweight
madame whose curves are splattered in yellow but faded sequins broadcasting a sleazy but friendly smile - this is the perfect jazz club.
Paris is a bazaar of international intensity, a spirit of eras and art, tempers and good service. It's a huge free spirit peppered with prejudice and challenge.
A true city is, surely, defined by the fact that it has at least one opera house and more than one jazz club. And endless gastronomic temptation, of course.
Despite the flashes of tension and the mostly unfair reputation of Parisian indifference, post war Paris was the cultural safe haven for many of the jazz greats escaping the racial prejudice of the US - from the lynching south up to northern states, in diminishing but nonetheless real spirals of violence.
The jazz refugees - Sidney Bechet, Bud Powell, Dexter Gordon et al - Miles Davis' famous affair with Satre's lover Juliette Greco, are part of the legend of Europe's cultural haven which was a home to countless artists including an exiled Picasso. It's where races blended in rivers of art.
Like many, the news of the Paris attack last weekend brought memories of this racy metropolis flooding back. For me - the fateful day of 9/11 when in 2001 we watched Sky news stunned by the emerging images, and the personal scent of visits to this great heart of France city of
romance and culture.
Arriving back this week, just two days later on the afternoon flight, I found the streets of London defiant, vibrant, determined.
Rich Mix, a Shoreditch cultural centre, was relaxed even as theatres and performance halls around London adopted tightened security measures.
In booking to see the powerful trumpeter Christian Scott I had not anticipated the seating arrangements. For the first time in over 30 years I found myself being asked
to have my hand stamped - no tickets, no seats.
Eventually, with some ingenuity, we secured a small sofa on an overlooking balcony.
Only as the audience gathered in a wild array of dress and hair styles to chill in a tsunami of sound and rhythm, did it dawn on me that we were that audience. That same gathering of people that trundle through cold nights, packed metros to work, to love and , just from time to time, to celebrate.
JE SUIS....just another punter dreaming of strolling along a Parisian thoroughfare.
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