By Bob Young
Sunday, January 9, 2005

Getting to catch a band up close and personal after imagining it based on its CDs can be as deflating or exhilarating as finally meeting the person with that intriguing voice you've been hearing on the phone for years.

     Over the course of five albums, the Paris Combo has fired the imagination of anyone who likes their music cool, continental, witty and more than a little mysterious.

     Their local debut Friday night at the Somerville Theatre left the full house with only one question: Where have you been all our lives?

     Led by former French punk rock singer Belle du Berry, the quintet carried the crowd to a time and a place that was as hard to pin down as it was fun to visit. Was it a Latin Quarter cafe in the '30s? A North African nightclub in the '80s?

      It was that and thoroughly modern, too, as du Berry and her virtuosic band mates used their bright gypsy jazz to author stylishly tight stories that fell some-gfreviewParis Combo, at the Somerville Theatre, Friday night.cw-4where between cabaret and pop.

     Back in Paris, the ensemble is part of the city's contemporary French Song movement, and they left no doubt that they owed the chanson tradition a large debt.

     Yet with a bassist/backup singer from Madagascar, a French drummer with more than a little New Orleans funk in his blood, an acoustic guitarist of Algerian descent and a pianist/trumpeter from Australia, stretching the boundaries comes as naturally as drinking fine wine.

     That was clear on the airy Moroccan-inflected rhythms that drove several songs, the bossa nova prettiness of ``Aquarium,'' and the flamenco-meets-Django Reinhardt guitar forays of ``Potzi.'' David Lewis used his trumpet to torch up song after sexy song, as a slinky brand of swing powered the entire set.

     The material came from their new CD, ``Motifs'' and earlier recordings, with the charismatic du Berry introducing her French-sung lyrics in English with entertaining tales.

     Oui, oui, more live Paris Combo around here is definitely in order.