Annie sings standards in new album

Annie Brazil has been performing for over 60 years. That is tantamount to a lifetime. And what a life it has been for her, a life filled with ups and downs but where the music is ever constant. Annie has sung through periods of peace, wars, joys and heartbreak.

She has gone from teary-eyed renditions of Ang Maging Ulila to the sophisticated works of Duke Ellington. Annie is now 73 years old and her friends have long ago retired from singing. She has paid all her dues and can now kick off her shoes and enjoy the fruits of her labors. Not Annie though. Not when there are still so many songs she longs to sing in her own way, in the manner that life has taught her.

So Annie continues to gig twice a week in New York where she has settled and when possible comes home for some shows and maybe to record an album. Her second release in nearly two years is entitled Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It is her first after a period of illness and it is a collection of well-loved standards done in her jazzy style. She has sung them many times before but as she attests, never in the same manner because living subjects interpretation to changes.

She says, "With experience you get the true emotion of the song as though the source of both pain and joy is there again for you to live through."Forget the singer. It is Annie the artist who is in top form here.

There is more pain than joy in her rendition and this lends a tenderness that cannot help but involve the listener with every cut. Included are It Could Happen to You, It Might As Well be Spring, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Lullaby of Birdland, I Only Have Eyes for You, Satin Doll, All The Things You Are, September in the Rain, God Bless the Child, It Had to be You, Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Love for Sale.

Richard Merk does very well in the duet of It Had to be You with Annie. This is only to be expected. Mother and son really jazz this one up. He has always been good with this kind of music and should mature into greater artistry in the same way that his mother is doing right now.

But I do think special mention should go to Isabella. Kuh Ledesma’s daughter stakes a claim on the jazz throne with Lullaby of Birdland and she is very good. I guess this means she has no plans of doing something similar to Dito Ba? or turning into a birit pop star. That decision is most welcome and I would love very much to hear her do more of this kind of songs in an album of her own soon.

Also featured is a combo made up of some of the best jazz musicians in the country today, namely: Romy Posadas on keyboards, Roger Herrera on electric upright bass, Popoy Belmonte on flugel horn and trumpet and Mar Dizon on drums. They not only accompany Annie, they also arranged the songs together with Richard.

Hits of Patti Page

More on the old songs. This time around I have news about the music of Patti Page. Some 60 years ago, she was the girl dubbed The Singing Rage and went on to sell over a hundred million records.

Not that there was anything raging about her songs, her hits were in truth, too, too or so overly silky. They were very right for the leisurely times of old but ill-suited to this generation.

We seldom hear Patti on the radio nowadays but you can now check out how silky her singing is in the recently released Hits of Patti Page album, that features 26 of her biggest sellers on CD.

Some of them are The Tennessee Waltz, Changing Partners, I Went to Your Wedding, How Much is That Doggie in the Window, Mockin’ Bird Hill, Why Don’t You Believe Me, You Belong to Me, Once in a While, Cross Over the Bridge, Come What May, Don’t Blame Me, I’ll Never Smile Again, With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming, The Glory of Love, Would I Love You, All My Love, Detour, All I Do is Dream of You and Confess.

Speaking of reissues on CDs. That is the only thing I do not like about advancements in technology. They render the old inventions obsolete in the name of improvement.

Patti Page was first heard on 78 RPM breakable vinyl, then on 331/3 RPM albums, 45 RPM singles, cassette tapes and now on CDs.

Wonder what we will be listening to next.