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SONGBOOK (2005)

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1. Patter: With brisk urgency
2. Ballroom
3. Swing
4. Torch
5. Tap: With razzmatazz

The repertoire of popular standards often referred to as the “Great American Songbook” is made up of tunes written for Broadway, motion pictures and Tin Pan Alley during roughly the first half of the twentieth century. These songs survive today in their film incarnations, of course, as well as in the occasional Broadway revival or in the repertoire of the cabaret singer, and, most importantly perhaps, they survive in their role as the basis for much jazz improvisation. No one familiar with this body of work will have difficulty recognizing the inspiration for the five violin and cello duos that comprise this SONGBOOK. Things certainly do happen in these pieces that would not happen in a song by Berlin, Porter, Kern, and their ilk, but nothing happens that is at significant odds with the essential aesthetic purposes of such work.  These five tunes are not employed as the basis for some other kind of music.  They are not distorted beyond recognition, or slyly parodied. They, in fact, really are just songs; written without a trace of irony; written with affection; written to delight.  Think: Fred and Ginger

Karen Bentley-Pollick, violin (www.kbentley.com)

Dennis Parker, cello (www.dennisparkerland.com)

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