Creative vocals taking everything on from Bossa to Beatles takes place on this inspiring album featuring the voices of April Aloisio and Joani Pallatto. The ladies mix harmonies and solos in fascinating fashion, with Pallatto’s alto a perfect match and foil for Aloisio’s soprano as they mix and match with a wide ranging collection of artists including Fareed Haque/g, Mark Walker/dr, Bradley Parker-Sparrow-King Fleming-Howard Levy/p, Dede Sampaio/perc, Tomas de Utrera/flamg, Johnny Frigo/vi, Brad Goode/tp, Gerard Aloisio/btb along with special guest Bob Dorough/p-voc and Cliff Colnot/cond-arr.
The girls look great in nylon, with guitar strings supporting the lush voices on a ethereal and mystical take of Cream’s rock hit “I Feel Free” and floating around the strings on a dreamy take of The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Rich tropical tones create a joyful mood on “Samba Do Soho” and the festive “Bebe” featuring some sliding trombone work, while the ladies bop like Lambert, Hendricks and Ross on a festive “Have A Merry Christmas” and bop the jive on ”Live!”. WHEW!
Besides a salsa’d read of “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, the ladies stretch out on a three part “Sparrow” suite that features enchanting a cappella chants, some earthy flamenco calls and responses and a haunting and prismatic teaming with Frigo that creates long shadows. California Cool Dorough joins with the ladies on a cozy “Simone” and the ladies get tribal with some traditional South American folk moods on “Brazilian Rats”. The wide range of colors on this artistic palate makes me want to see them in concert, as the energy oozes off of the recording-how does it feel live?