BENNETT BRANDEIS' STORYTELLING

Simple but romantically vivacious arrangement,  exciting and elegant drums brushes by Kendall Kay and Jery Kalaf, right on bass with perfect timing by Octavio Bailly, and Dave Carpenter, splashes of piano virtuosity by Louis Durra, add sparkling drops of percussion by Mike Faue, and mix the whole effects with Bennett Brandeis aggressive but lyrical magic on guitar....and you get a world-class musical product! A Magnificent CD: STORYTELLING. It is quasi impossible to categorize and define Brandeis' music genre. Because it transcends the dogmatic boundaries of jazz. Brandeis is virtuoso and gently explodes in delightful musical creativity. His music is a refreshing blend of world music enrobed with daring improvisation, first rate originality and that succulent and sinfully beautiful romantic ambiance emanating from within, with depth, sensuality and pure elegance. The CD is a refreshing bouquet of 10 tracks of an exquisite beauty. This album is on its way to become a collector's treasure. Buy STORYTELLING, you will enjoy it for years to come. Rating: 4 stars out of five. Genre: World music blended with a Bossa Nova flair and soft elegant contempo Jazz. Reviewer: Maximillien de Lafayette, Syndicated Columnist and Entertainment Critic.

NATALIE DESSAY: French Arias ,
Michel Plasson, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse.

Splendid collection of coloratura soprano arias cleverly chosen  from French most lyrical operas by Donizetti,  Massenet,  Thomas, Offenbach and Gounod.  Natalie Dessay,  the world's top coloratura soprano, showed her incomparable virtuosity and flute-like high notes in a perfect bouquet of popular and best kept secret operatic odes and ballades. In brief, acquire a copy. Rating: 5 stars out of 5. Released on Virgin.-Reviewer: Maximillien de Lafayette. London, UK.

BORING...BORING! GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

Ann Hampton Callaway

It is not enough to count on your fame to cash on your CD. True, celebrity status sells records. But, quality is to be preserved, originality to metamorphose and warmth to emanate from your songs. Unfortunately, it did NOT happen for many recording artists this year. Among those singers who bored me to death are Ann Hampton Callaway, especially when she sings  "Let the Saints Come Marching". Her CD "Who Can See The Blue The Same Again?" is a great disappointment, keep it on the dusty shelves. Marcovicci failed to maintain her vocal quality in her last 2 released CDs. What happened to this diva? I wish Marcovicci would go back and listen to her "Live From London". That CD was monumental. In addition to her failure in delivering the quality expected from a grande dame of the American cabaret, Marcovicci adopted this nonchalant attitude "laisser aller". This could and would explain the reason why her appearances schedule is getting minimal. By Shoshanna Rosenstein.

The simple, yet melodiously beautiful musical arrangements, the fabulous accordion half java, half musette "flons flons", and the voice of Ms. Müller gave us a magnificent recording. The accompaniment of Caio Bescarano, Mario Cavaceppi and David Perkins are first class. And this is exactly what Ms. Muller needed to authentically and truthfully recapture the golden era of European cabaret. The song "Drunt' in der Lobau" (Down there in the Lobau)  is a pure magic. It tells us the story of a woman who "cannot find the place where her young lover kissed her, but she does remember every bit of that wonderful moment when they kissed: nightingales were singing, happiness laughed from a thousand branches, and they dreamt of an everlasting love." Liesl did a superb job in singing that song. Wien und der Wein is a marvelous CD. Two thumbs up! Rating: 5 stars out of 5. Buy it. Get your copy. You will treasure it for many years to come.- Reviewer: Maximillien de Lafayette, syndicated columnist and art critic. London. UK.

WIEN UND DER WEIN: GEM IEJCD3. Licensed by MCPS. Highbreck Associates. www.golden-era.co.uk.

The trillion-faced God!" From the American folk tradition he chose "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," "Been in the Pen So Long," "Foggy Foggy Dew," and "Old Paint" which Katz says he "treated as sort of an erotic thing." From the African songbook he went with "Chili'lo," "Manthi-ki," and "Mate'ka," and from the Hebrew side "Baal Shem Tov" and "Rav's Nigun." FOLK SONGS FOR FAR OUT FOLK was produced by pedal steel guitar pioneer and famed bandleader Alvino Rey and recorded in 1958 during three separate sessions in Hollywood, one for each set of folk songs. Each session also had its own set of musicians, an impressive list of 50s jazz stalwarts hand-picked by Katz. The American songs include jazz guitar great Billy Bean and on piano, Johnny T. Williams, better known nowadays as Hollywood film composer and Oscar mainstay John Williams (Star Wars, Jaws, Schindler's List). The Hebrew sessions featured the flutes and saxophones of Buddy Collette and Paul Horn, Katz's esteemed Los Angeles colleagues from the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and the African songs include appearances by bongo king Jack Costanzo and trumpeters Pete Candoli (alum of the Woody Herman and Stan Kenton bands) and Irving Goodman (brother of Benny). After Reboot Stereophonic co-founder Josh Kun first heard the original LP a few years ago, the team began searching for Katz. Kun headed south from L.A. to Katz's home in Fullerton for a series of long visits in the fall of 2006. "He is an inspiration as a musician, an intellectual, and a human being," says Kun. "Spending time with Fred, hearing his stories, listening to him play his cello, learning about his life, only made Folk Songs that much more powerful, a true testament to his boundless creativity as an artist. I'm so honored that we're able to make this music available again." The project is the fifth release by Reboot Stereophonic following the critically acclaimed re-issue of the 1959 Latin-Jewish hybrid, BAGELS AND BONGOS by 92-year-old IRVING FIELDS, GOD IS A MOOG by moog pioneer, Gershon Kingsley, and the JEWFACE collection, the world's first and only anthology of Jewish minstrel songs that took vaudeville stages by storm at the turn of the 20th century. The label is an outgrowth of a fast growing national network called Reboot which engages some of the most talented young creatives in the music, film, television, technology, politics, literature and media realms in the examination of generational changes in identity, community and meaning.