Album Reviews

BEAT KAESTLI

Happy, Sad and Satisfied.

2006-01-31

Only the music gurus at WYCE can find stuff like this: Swiss jazz. Young singer/arranger Beat Kaestli (born and raised in Switzerland, but now a NYC crooner) is in the Harry Connick, Jr. mode and while we don’t need even more versions of “Autumn Leaves” (what is up with everyone covering that chestnut over the last year?), this kid’s strength is in his arrangements and his instrumental compadres.

I think the disc gets better in the second half, with the instrumentation carrying cuts #7-#10. Listen especially to the trumpet in “So in Love,” the bass and sax in “Tenderly” and the organ in the interesting set-closer “I (Who Have Nothing)” * who remembers Tom Jones singing that on Top 40 radio? It is also different to hear a male lead on Gershwin’s “Summertime.” If this youngster wants to make it, my advice is to keep up the good work on the arrangements and choose less predictable numbers; that’s what makes the second half of this CD more intriguing.

1/06 MJVD Jazz-Contemporary (vocal)

all reviews | all jazz reviews

More reviews tagged #Jazz

reviewed 11/2006
RASHIED ALI QUINTET
Judgment Day
reviewed 02/2009
THE JAMES TAYLOR QUARTET
New World
reviewed 04/2007
JULIETTE GRECO
Le Temps d’une Chanson
reviewed 09/2004
Charlie Watts and the Tentet
Watts at Scott's
reviewed 12/2007
THE MIKE LONGO TRIO
Float Like a Butterfly
reviewed 09/2006
MADEiLINE PEYROUX
Half the Perfect World

Compiled by the WYCE Journalism Club

The opinions expressed in these reviews are those of the individual volunteers that submitted the article and do not necessarily reflect the views of WYCE or GRCMC; nor its staff, donors, or affiliates.