Music CD - Pink Martini: Sympathique

	Music CD: Sympathique Artist: Pink Martini List Price: $18.98 Our Price: $11.73 Your Save: $ 7.25 ( 38% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Heinz Records
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Tracks: 1. Amado Mio 2. No Hay Problema 3. Sympathique 4. Que Sera Sera 5. La Soledad 6. Donde Estas, Yolanda? 7. Andalucia 8. Song Of The Black Lizard 9. Never On Sunday 10. Brazil 11. Lullaby
Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0751937106623 Label: Heinz Records Manufacturer: Heinz Records Number Of Discs: 1 Publisher: Heinz Records Release Date: 1997-11-18 Studio: Heinz Records
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: The best. Comment: This CD is very upbeat and extremely creative. This is my second one. I wore the first one out. Customer Rating: Summary: Oo La La Lovin It Comment: I first heard of Pink Martini about a year and a half ago when friends invited my hubby and I to a concert Pink Martini was having in Seattle, Washington. Since our friends were offering, we went just for the heck of it. And, boy, are we glad we did! The band reminds me of old days gone by (OK, I'm too young for the big band era but I still enjoy it). 'Sympathique' is my favorite out of all their CDs. It's smooth, upbeat, unique, with a European feel. Love it! It relaxes me every time I play it. And it makes great party/dinner music, too. Customer Rating: Summary: Great, but French is terrible Comment: The music is really great, but her French accent is so deplorable I can hardly listen to Sympathique. It sounds very American teenager speaking French in a high school class. The music is wonderful if you can deal with that. Customer Rating: Summary: Flavored Seltzer Water Comment: If you've ever actually had a martini, you know that its one redeeming quality is that it delivers its payload with impact, like being hit in the face with a baseball bat. A martini is Coltrane on Ascension, or Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner. Presumably this "little orchestra" settled on the name Pink Martini because it sounded sophisticated and hip. But this music appears designed to have the impact of flavored seltzer; it is effervescent. That is both its single merit and its damnation. While the musicianship cannot be faulted, the music never emerges from being audio wallpaper. If there are dentist's offices in heaven, this CD plays in the waiting rooms. Much has been made of the rhythms to be found here, and PM surely does love the Latin beat, so much so that one might imagine one's self in a remedial dance academy for jaded adults anxious to learn the tango. Likewise, there has been considerable discussion of the "dark and edgy" rendition of Qué Sera Sera. Granted, it sounds like it was cut from the soundtrack of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? - but if that's as far out as you go, well, you're in the center of the mainstream. Indeed, universal likeability is precisely what makes Pink Martini the ideal choice for your next Bar Mitzvah. The star attraction of this mambo combo is singer China Forbes, an art major from Harvard. Forbes has a gorgeous natural instrument and is classically trained. Not only that, she has a wonderful ear, which enables her to sing in various languages convincingly. The moments when she shines are the CD's highpoints. Pink Martini is quite insistent about drawing on the musical traditions of many nations. At first this feels daring, then it starts resembling a parlor trick, and finally it feels like elitist grandstanding the group is engaging in to impress itself. If you want a martini, pink or blue or green, buy a Sun Ra CD. If you want a CD certain not to upset your 97-year old grandmother as she drifts in and out of her nap, Sympathetique is for you. Customer Rating: Summary: Simpatico Comment: I am definitely simpatico with Pink Martini and this particular album! Sometimes I play it nearly non-stop while cooking, alternating with my other Pink Martinis: HEY EUGENE! and Hang On Little Tomato. I love the mix of languages and styles in all their albums and the wonderfully clear French on the song "Sympathique," which a friend of mine first discovered on a French-language site as a tool for learning the language! And isn't this eerie version of "Que Sera Sera" used on the soundtrack of the film In the Cut?! More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: While the cocktail lounge fad has seen more than a few musicians climb aboard as a career move, the members of Pink Martini are no bandwagon-riding aficionados. Fronted by pianist Thomas Lauderdale, Pink Martini is the real article--a band that approaches the music with unwavering seriousness yet never forgets the fun at the heart of it. Sympathique, the band's debut album reveals an incredibly diverse musical vocabulary on the part of frontman Lauderdale. And what singer China Forbes lacks in range and dynamics, she more than compensates for in attack, approach, and a clear understanding of the material. While most of the songs are upbeat, in the hands of Lauderdale and Forbes, "Qué será será," with its dark atmospherics should be rechristened "Qué será noir." --Wayne Pernu