September 19, 2009

The Barry Sisters RELOADED

Just in time for Rosh Hashanah, we have more sweet tracks from our favourite swingin' Yiddish siblings, The Barry Sisters!

This album, "The Barry Sisters Sing", is brought to us by my new pal and a reader/listener of this blog, Ron Caddigan. You see, a few months ago, I posted an album of 'greatest hits' from the Barry Sisters, which prompted a comment from Ron saying how much he liked them as well. Since I didn't know Ron's name previously, I thought he was just a "random" person who had happened to visit this blog, but I found out later we were linked by about three or four degrees or separation, with Ron being the boyfriend of the daughter of the husband of an old friend of mine. So, we arranged to meet for lunch, and he entrusted me with this LP, so it could be featured on this blog as a sort of "Barry Sisters Part 2" kind of thing.

Like the 'greatest hits' album, this is full of sprightly tunes sung mostly in Hebrew/Yiddish (although there are some performed in English) by these two ladies who, perhaps by virtue of being sisters, have voices that seems to be meant to sing together. Lovely!

September 13, 2009

That's a Lot of Trombones

A 21-trombone salute? For this album, jazz trombonist Urbie Green assembled a group of 21 of the world's greatest trombone players (I'm dying to make a joke using the word tromboner but I'm gonna keep it professional) and over the course of three days, recorded these "tromboney" renditions of mostly pop and jazz standards.

There are indeed 21 trombones in the ensemble playing all together - possibly the biggest 'bone ensemble ever known! If 21 'bones seems like so much 'bone you'll groan, keep in mind that it's all backed up by a guitar/bass/drum-n-percussion rhythm section to help tone down the 'bone. So get into the 'Bone Zone ... 'bone so melodious, you'll be thrown!