It was a three-hour tour that traveled musically from France to China but I had to journey only three miles on Friday night to experience it.

The French serenade was courtesy of piano legend Michel Legrand at the Dakota Jazz Club, and the Chinese folk music was a detour taken by Americana adventurer Abigail Washburn at the Cedar Cultural Center.

First, Legrand.

At 79, the three-time Oscar winner and five-time Grammy recipient was making his overdue Twin Cities debut. He may be best known for his movie music (he's scored and composed films by Jean Luc Godard, Orson Welles, Clint Eastwood and Barbra Streisand, to name a few) but his 65-minute first set Friday was devoted mostly to jazz.

The ever-versatile Frenchman would introduce pieces by saying something like "this scene I wrote" or "I wrote this melody" because much of the material came from his film work. He'd play the melody on grand piano and then, backed by splendid drummer Willie Jones III and fabulous bassist John Patitucci, turn it into a captivating jazz excursion.

In a word: Playful. Both in conversation and on piano. For example, he said, "I wrote this a long time ago. It was 1864, I think."

Legrand was playful but a serious player. He'd start with a romantic melody and then swing, bop or get carried away with fast and fancy phrasing. He sang a bit with what might be called a composer's voice. He invited a female singer – I'm still trying to track down her name (Nora Sherry is what it sounded like) -- for a vocal duet on "How Do You Keep the Music Playing"; she sounded like a deep voiced Barbra Streisand wannabe trying to do jazz. One word: Overwrought.

More satisfying were the instrumental pieces, including "Ray's Blues" --a tribute to Ray Charles that found the right blend of jazz, blues and soul-- and the overly familiar "Umbrellas of Cherbourg," which Legrand tried to "destroy" (his word-- playful, of course) by doing jazz, waltz, New Orleans, tango and Russian interpretations of the main theme. Merveilleux!

With visions of France dancing in my head, I zipped over to the Cedar where Washburn was already half-way into her first of two 45-minute sets. The clawhammer banjo ace – an Edina High grad who made a few local references – did several inventive Americana pieces (she can get dark but leavens it with her effusive, loopy patter) and took two intriguing trips to China (a country she's visited at least a couple times).

One number was a folk song, complete with hand gestures, that she learned from Old Lady Wong in 1996. The other was a Szeuchan ditty (done as a sing-along, with phonetic coaching) that she learned from a young girl in 2008.

Washburn in a word: Charming.