With his dandy high-collared shirts and his romantic lead looks, Dany Brillant has all the makings of a teenage heartthrob. But he ran the risk of being dismissed as a one-hit wonder following his smash hit Suzette and those immortal lines, "J'ai perdu la tête /depuis que j'ai vu Suzette" (I lost my head the moment I met Suzette). And yet, over the years Monsieur Brillant has proved that his is no flash-in-the-pan success story – even though he has often been criticised for following passing fashions and music fads!

Now, after flirting with Zazou beats, Cuban salsa, a touch of Italian dolce vita and Saint-Germain swinging, Dany Brillant has returned to his first love: jazz. And not any old jazz, either! Dany has returned to the very source of jazz for inspiration, flying out to New Orleans to record his new album with the finest musicians from Harry Connick Jr's band. These include legendary jazzmen such as trumpeter Leroy Jones, saxophonist Ned Gould and drummer Arthur II Latin. Maybe it was the thought of performing with such a highly talented bunch that encouraged Brillant, an artist who is proud of having had no formal musical training, to take singing lessons for the first time in his career. No room for off notes on this album! "Jazz is a very sophisticated style of music," says Brillant, "and one that demands immense vocal control. I wanted to be up to the job. That's why I took lessons to get rid of a few vocal tics and really work on my interpretation, really trying to get down to those low notes like the great crooners of the past."

Interestingly enough, Dany has always cultivated something of a 'crooner' look, going in for crisp whit shirts and dark suits elegantly nipped in at the waist. What's more his square jaw, dark brooding eyes and sensual lips give him the perfect physique to woo audiences with romance. While his albums have all been festive and upbeat to date, Dany is no common and garden 'variété' star. He throws himself heart and soul into his performances, coming across as someone who is very sincere in what he does. And although love has always been a recurrent theme in his songs, his new album finds him moving beyond clichés and generalities, adding something of a more personal touch. (The song Un jour, for instance, finds him musing about the difficulty of building a life together as a couple).

Jazz… à la Nouvelle-Orléans is an interesting opus, in fact, alternating faster swing numbers with romantic smooch ballads of a style that went out of fashion long ago. The entire album, in fact, is infused with nostalgia for the good old days. J'habitais à Saint-Germain-des-Prés (a logical sequel to Dany's early hit Viens à Saint-Germain) finds him lamenting the demise of Paris's famous bohemian hang-out (increasingly overtaken these days by commercial outlets and fashion boutiques). On Je t'attends Dany searches a higher spirituality, over a background of stirring 'klezmer' (traditional Yiddish music originally imported to the United States by immigrants from Eastern Europe which has become the height of fashion in New York). Dany then moves on to a more moody Miles Davis/Round Midnight ambience on A mon père (a tribute to his late father, to whom the album is dedicated).

For music fans not familiar with the Dany Brillant story, Dany Brillant (né Cohen) was born in Tunisia to a modest family of 'pieds noirs' who moved to Paris in the middle of the Six Day War. Dany was barely a year old at the time. He went on to grow up in the Paris suburbs where he proved to be a bored and easily distracted pupil. Dany went on to attend medical school, nevertheless, mainly to please his parents, but this did not stop him shouldering his guitar at the 'Trois Maillets' club from time to time in order to pay for drama lessons. Dany, a passionate guitar collector, actually dreamt of making a career for himself in the film world rather than the music world. And he originally wrote Suzette for Francis Huster's movie On a volé Charlie Spencer, in which Dany put in a cameo appearance singing the song. (The Suzette in question was no feminine conquest, incidentally, but the name of Francis Huster's mother). Unfortunately, Dany's appearance ended up on the cutting-room floor, putting an end to his film career. Furious about the incident, Dany went on to re-record Suzette five years later, rocketing up the charts in 1991.

Now, over a decade later, Monsieur Brillant has forged a respectable career for himself in the space of six albums. And with Ca le fait…le big band he even manages to make the French language swing like its English counterpart on a song that pays tribute to his masters, Aznavour and Sinatra. Talking of Sinatra, Dany's new album actually ends with a rendition of the crooning classic par excellence, Fly Me to the Moon. And a Dany brilliant job of it he makes, too!