Articles

Denise King & Olivier Hutman: "Give Me The High Sign"

Category: CD music

May 2013

Bold Singing from Denise King

Cristal Records CR 209

Format: CD

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Talk about successful hands-across-the-sea unions! Denise King was born in Philadelphia and got her first singing experience in clubs in the City of Brotherly Love. Olivier Hutman was born in France and has quite a lengthy resume as bandleader, sideman, and film-music composer, having made over 200 recordings. The two met, toured together, and now have released Give Me The High Sign, their second album together. It sounds like they have known each other for a long time when actually their association has been very brief. Based on what I hear on this dynamic CD, their partnership should go on for a very long time.

Thomas Gansch and Georg Breinschmid: "Gansch & Breinschmid Live"

Category: CD music

April 2013

Madcap Music for the Concert Hall

Preiser PR91239CD
Format: CD

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If you want to poke fun at music, it helps to be a virtuoso, a title that both Thomas Gansch and Georg Breinschmid can easily claim. Trumpeter Gansch and double-bass player Breinschmid met in 1997. Each had impressive credentials performing classical music, and together they decided to quit that business and play what they wanted to play, which included just about everything. They are now well on their way to joining the ranks of such famous music spoofers as Spike Jones, Victor Borge, and Anna Russell. They'd be right at home at the Hoffnung Music Festival concerts as well.

Raquel Bitton: "Rhythm of the Heart"

Category: CD music

March 2013

A Magnificently Recorded Tribute to Tino Rossi

RB Records RB 4302

Format: CD

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Raquel Bitton has spent a large portion of her professional life recreating the art of Edith Piaf. Bitton has performed her hit show, Raquel Bitton Sings Piaf -- Her Story, Her Songs, three times at Carnegie Hall and in music halls and theaters across North America. A PBS docu-concert film of the show, Piaf: Her Story, Her Songs, still continues to air on PBS stations. If you like Piaf (and who doesn't?), you'll enjoy Bitton's new CD, Rhythm of the Heart, though it is devoted to the memory of a different singer, Tino Rossi (1907-1983).

Ben Sidran: "Don’t Cry for No Hipster"

Category: CD music

March 2013

Ben Sidran's Totally Hip 35th Solo Album

Unlimited Media 5638090383
Format: CD

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In his written notes for this upbeat retro CD, Ben Sidran reminds us that hipster was originally a term used during Prohibition to describe a dude who arrives at a club with a flask in his hip pocket. If you were "hip," it meant you had booze. Later on, other meanings started to define the word -- anti-establishment, cooler than cool, the height of "it." Cannonball Adderley is credited with saying, "Hipness is not a state of mind. It's a fact of life."

Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo: "Melody Magic"

Category: CD music

February 2013

The Melody's the Thing in This Hot Club Collection

Azica AJD-72248
Format: CD

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I am generally opposed to juicing up classical music. Back in the late days of disco, there was a series of recordings called Hooked on Classics that took themes from classical compositions and set them to a drum machine with a disco beat. Though I was amazed at just how many different melodies could be set this way, I was appalled that anyone might really record these efforts. To top things off, a local movie theater (which I attended at least once a week) latched on to the first LP in the series to play between movie showings. Needless to say, I started being a little late to shows, and at the film's end I moved myself to the back door so that at the instant the last credit was shown I could flee before being aurally assaulted.