Django, Baro, and Gangsters

tomcunn

alot of interest

pickitjohn

Keep it coming, thanks to all and I hope to see more.
pick on

pickitjohn :peace:

François RAVEZ

Hi everybody,

Claude Dubois wrote a book about Jo Privat where for the 1st time I saw indicated precisely the addresses of several places that some of us had been looking for during many years.

La Lanterne was at 19 rue DESCOMBES, near Porte de Champerret. Before La Lanterne it was another bar called le Rococo-Bar. Now it is just a company which sells gifts for business and advertising objects I will try to post some photos tomorrow, but you can see it on Google StreetView.

Le Baro-Bar was at 48 rue de La Rochefoucauld (near rue Pigalle). There was still a "bar à hôtesses" at this address, but it was closed for 6 months (until 11 dec 2013) by the Police. It is the kind of place where a vodka will cost you 20 euros and where girls sitting on high chairs will try to make you order some so-called champagne than they will later charge you for an astronomical amount. If you start making fuss a tough guy suddenly appears. It is a juicy business and to summarize it is like prostitution but without sex. You are seldom sentenced to jail and usually nobody complains to the police. Last time I visited Pigalle, with Brandoneon, a few monthes ago, it was still closed. It seems that Baro had this Bar during a period which goes from after ww2 to end 40's beginning of 50's. Then it became Le Bar des Trois Canards (the 3 ducks )which was the meeting point of very violent and cruel gangsters who was known as la "bande des trois canards" they used to racket the Pigalle brothels owners and to torture them and even kill them in the basement of the bar when they did not want to pay.

By 1949-1950, according to Claude Dubois, Baro proposed to Jo Privat to run a bar called 'Chez Jeannot' but known as 'Chez Fanfan' at 4 rue de Douai. This bar appears in the 1955 movie 'Bob le Flambeur'. It was and is still called 'Le Pile ou Face'. Jo Privat turned down the offer to run this bar (but later held himself a bar called Le 'Barajo' in Bagnolet [not to be mistaken with the Balajo]).

Now it seems that there was also another establishment called 'Bar Vert' or 'Baro Vert' or 'Barreaux Verts' but no one is able to indicate when or where it was.

Best

François RAVEZ

Loritmo

This is so interesting. Keep it coming....

Lorretta

François RAVEZ

Hi

Here are some photos of what was 'La Lanterne' before at 19 rue Descombes in Paris.

Best

François RAVEZ

Here are some photos of what was the Baro-Bar 48 rue de La Rochefoucauld. I tried to make a snapshot of the Inside but it really hard to see anything.

Best

François RAVEZ

Hi here are some photos of the bar 'Le Pile ou Face' in 1955 from the movie 'Bob le Flambeur' and now.

You can see the site of this bar here : http://www.sortiraparis.com/hotel-restaurant/bar-cafes/articles/75117-pile-ou-face-nouveau-bar-a-pigalle


Best

Teddy Dupont

That "Coco Bar" looks dead seedy. I wouldn't want to take a chance in there.

Buco

These kind of characters are fascinating to me. Not because of his/theirs mysterious gangster life. Where I grew up, our neighborhoods had a fair share of shady criminal characters and sometimes you'd end up in the same company through some mutual friends and acquaintances and if you didn't know their background they didn't appear any different from anyone else; they can be relaxed, not projecting any toughness, just having fun like anyone else. I've even seen a guy like that, quite similar to Baro from what I can read, totally diffuse a fight when it was on a verge of getting ugly in a very diplomatic and calming way.

What fascinates me is on one side you have Baro, a guy probably an adrenaline junky, living in this illicit world of constant turbulence but on the other there's a dedicated practitioner of music.
I mean, no matter what you think of his music and his legacy, Baro was a very accomplished guitar player at the very least. That level of skill couldn't have all come from having fun jamming around his friends. There had to have been a good amount of dedicated, focused, often boring and mundane practice.
I don't know if I'm expressing what I'm after in the right way, but those two characters that are such polar opposites is what fascinates me.

And yes, Django looks, regardless of that third picture, pretty dispirited in their company. I've never seen that expression in any other picture of his, he doesn't look like he wants to be there.

Teddy Dupont

Django having a little soiree at Avenue Frochot just a short distance from one of the Corsican mafia's strongholds with Naguine, Charles Delaunay and Roger Chaput about the same time as the bar opening photos were taken.

Avenue Frochot today and a plaque at No 6 to our hero saying he lived there. Other notable people also lived there.