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| | Avant Gershwin | | | Music Artist : | | Patti Austin | | Music Style : | | Traditional Vocal Pop | | Record Label : | | Rendezvous | | Release Date : | | 2007-03-06 | | Store Price : | | $17.98 | | Artistopia's Price: $14.99 | | Usually ships in 3 to 5 days | | |
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CD Tracks/Songs
Disc 11. Overtue/Gershwin Medley
2. I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise
3. Who Cares
4. Funny Face
5. Love Walked In/Love Is Sweeping the Country
6. Swanee
7. Porgy and Bess Medley
8. Lady Be Good
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Other Artist Albums
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 Exceptional.
Submitted on: 2009-05-05 |
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| This CD has the proper title. Ms. Austin sings like these songs have not been sung before with vigor and vitality. She is to be commended for such a project. I asked my significant other to listen to the CD and I can't get it back. I can't wait for Ms. Auatin's next project. Applause!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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This Is A Grammy Winner for "Best Jazz Vocal Album" - 50th Annual Grammy Awards
Submitted on: 2008-02-12 |
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"When you look at the body of work from the Gershwins, it is kind of frightening. It is like they were sent by God to drop off a package and send them back in another two hundred years to do something magnificent. We just scratched the surface of their body of work, and isn't that fascinating?" ~ Patti Austin, All About Jazz ~
Recorded live and released in March of 2007, "Avant Gershwin," won the "Best Vocal Jazz Album" at the recent 50th Annual Grammy Awards. Congratulations to Patti Austin and everyone involved in this great CD for a well-deserved recognition. I am a long-time fan of George and Ira Gershwin's music and lyrics and who could do more than justice to their ingenious works than a fine jazz singer and also one of my all-time favorites, Patti Austin? I've been a long-time fan since the early eighties and have collected some of her best recordings most notably her collaborations with George Benson, James Ingram, Bob James and Quincy Jones.
This is a great tribute to the exceptional songwriting and composing talents of the Gershwin Brothers. Some of their well-loved gems are featured in this CD starting off with "Overture/Gershwin Medley," a Grammy-nominated-track for the "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist," down to "Lady Be Good." For someone who has been singing since age five, Patti Austin made her renditions more special with her wealth of experience in jazz singing and scatting. She brings freshness of style to these time-tested standards thereby making this album as one of the best Gershwin tributes ever recorded. The beautiful chart arrangements by Michael Abene and excellent musicianship of WDR Big Band (same band who backed her on for Ella) are contributing factors that made this album worthy of a Grammy nomination and the much-coveted award. Each song is taken to a higher level of appreciation for she has the ability to turn a timeless standard into a remarkably impressive gem of a song with a new twist. I'm sure the Gershwins in Heaven must be beaming with joy!
My choice cuts include a medley of "Love Walked In/Love Is Sweeping The Country" and a less-famous and seldom-recorded song but is surely a beauty, "Who Cares?" I first heard it from Kate Smith on one of my late father's collection of records. Tony Bennett also recorded it with Ralph Sharon Trio on Essential George Gershwin and ditto with Michael Feinstein on Nice Work If You Can Get It: Songs by the Gershwins. Her smooth take on "Summertime," one of the songs from "Porgy And Bess Medley," is simply gorgeous.
This Grammy-winning CD in its entirety is a sheer beauty and pure perfection. I wholeheartedly recommend it for a lovely listening experience. |
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 Sorely Disappointed!
Submitted on: 2007-06-27 |
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| I think Patti Austin is one of the great talents of our time. However, this offering is terribly disappointing. For me, Gershwin is an icon, and I have heard Ms. Austin render Gershwin before (with Gregory Hines at the Hollywood Bowl). At that venue, she soared, and gave fresh meaning to the words and music of the Gershwins. At that time, I longed to have her do a complete album of Gershwin standards. Sometimes, what one wishes for can be a disaster. Such is the case with this album. The music is compromised by the overly "creative" jazz interpretations, and as a result, the lyrics are equally compromised. The Gershwins were genius. Why do some musicians believe they can "improve" upon that brilliance, simply because George and Ira are not here to challenge such sordid interpretations of their creations? Ms. Austin is lost in the shuffle, and her talent is rendered, for this listener, useless. Wouldn't it be nice if Austin has stayed with the script and done the Gershwins justice? This offering?...an injustice to Austin, George and Ira Gershwin, and to aficionados of the standards. Better luck next time, if there is one. |
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 Could have been better.
Submitted on: 2007-06-16 |
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Given that it's Patti Austin it's not unfair to expect a lot. Unfortunately, she misses the mark here. As expected there is nothing technically wrong with the album, it's just that the arrangements are lackluster, and the song pairings don't really work.
Incredible voice though. |
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Austin may have just found her niche!
Submitted on: 2007-06-10 |
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A performer for over thirty years, Patti Austin has done it all: pop, R & B, a little gospel, standards, and even a highly sought after jingle singer. It wasn't until 2002's Grammy-worthy "For Ella" that it appeared that the singer was now getting recognition for her singular vocal style as she paid tribute on that album to one of jazz's greats, Ella Fitzgerald.
Now, five years later, Austin takes on the music of the Ira and George Gershwin, who along with Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, were possibly the greatest songwriters of all time, not just the twentieth century. Backed by a full band and recorded live last year in Germany, Austin lets it all out as she interprets songs that will stand the test of time long after the current chart-toppers have turned to dust.
Austin's vocal instrument is so flexible that she is able to be poignant yet sassy, seductive yet saintly, trashy yet classy, and provocative yet conservative.
She can do it all and really pours it on thick with the opening twelve-minute long "Gershwin Medley" and the equally impressive "Porgy and Bess Medley." Even the remaining songs are lustrous and provide a venue for one of the great songstresses of the last and this century.
Austin is just hitting her prime and, besides her singing, she has a new look, having shed some pounds and getting a makeover.
When one looks at the singer, glamorously decked out and coiffed on the back cover, one can only exclaim, "D**N! She looks just as good as she sounds." |
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