Heart & Soul: Live in San Francisco

Kitty Margolis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 2, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mad Kat
• ASIN: B0001GF2NS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,461 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times

Margolis, an equally potent blend of class, integrity and chutzpah, delights the SRO audience with 75 minutes of thrilling showmanship.

Product Description

Kitty Margolis is at her very best LIVE and on "Heart & Soul: Live in San Francisco" she proves this in spades. Margolis is tremendous improviser, a risk-taker at her very core and this new CD brilliantly captures the unpredictable excitement of the singer's club set, down to Margolis' dialogue with the audience and off-the-cuff humor. Here, for her fifth recording as a leader, Margolis celebrates a return to her roots, taping in front of a packed house at the old On Broadway Theater in San Francisco's North Beach, only a few doors down from the legendary but now defunct Jazz Workshop, where she made her critically acclaimed debut album fifteen years earlier.

Highlights include: Kitty’s fresh, buoyant arrangement of "A Sleepin’ Bee," her incendiary scat tour de force on "Summertime," a bluesy romp though Mose Allison's "Your Mind Is On Vacation" the funky, joyful re-working of "Surrey With the Fringe," her sweet, poignant celebration of "Secret Love," the blazing version of "My Favorite Things" and her achingly romantic interpretation of the title track.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now, this is a jazz singer!!, May 8, 2004

By 

Rick Cornell "RC" (Reno, Nv USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Heart & Soul: Live in San Francisco (Audio CD)

On two nights in June of 2003 at the "Broadway Studios Nightclub" in North Beach, San Francisco, Kitty Margolis channelled Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, Mark Murphy and Mel Torme, and created one of the finest live albums released in years.

The album begins with Gershwin's "Love Walked In," as Ms. Margolis sings, "Love walked right in and scared the sh......adows away." Right there she has the audience in the palm of her hand. And, it gets better and better. Consider "Summertime": here, a la Torme, she throws in quotes from "Fly Me to the Moon," the later covered "Surrey" and "Favorite Things," and the more obscure Jon Hendricks' "Mr. P.C." On "My Favorite Things", she does a glottle-yodel, and in the process, sounds exactly like Trane's soprano sax from the famous recording. And, she saves the best for last: an encore of "While We're Young" that left the audience--and will leave you--stunned and wanting more.

I purchased this at the same time as Diana Krall's "The Girl in the Other Room". Chances are great that Ms. Krall's album will sell 100,000 copies before this one sells 1,000. Once again, life isn't fair--but you knew that. So my advice to you is: right injustice. Buy this c.d.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal singer at the top of her game!, June 4, 2004

By 

Tony Kitagawa (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heart & Soul: Live in San Francisco (Audio CD)

A friend turned me on to Kitty Margolis a few years ago. I bought 3 of her studio CDs, love them all and was excited to see this new "live"release. I knew I'd like it but wasn't prepared to be this blown away. This is most kickin' live jazz vocal CD I have ever heard from any singer who is still alive. Margolis is a singer at the peak of her power.

I love the classic concert recordings of Sarah, Joe Williams, Betty Carter, and more recently, Eva Cassidy and this ranks with the very best of the best. I am not a real scat fan unless it is superbly done and I have to say this is the most exciting scatting I have heard. It is like she is channeling Coltrane on "Summertime".

What impresses me most it Margolis' emotional range. One minute I'm choking up ("Heart & Soul" and "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year") and the next I'm cracking up ("Your Mind is on Vacation" and "Drunk in San Francisco") She has total command of the audience and it is fun to hear them react to her witty in between song comments (which are there just enough to give you a taste of her charismatic personality.) Wish I'd been at the show, but this is so well recorded that it seems like I am.

This CD should be in the collection of every jazz fan, even those who don't particularly go for singers. Margolis has a devoted cult following and this release should do nothing but increase her fan base. Most highly recommended!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kitty Margolis is absolutely astounding, August 30, 2004

By 

Juanita de Sanz (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heart & Soul: Live in San Francisco (Audio CD)

Kitty Margolis is absolutly astounding. I got "Heart and Soul" several weeks ago after seeing her name in the Down Beat Magazine Critics' Poll of "Best Jazz Vocalists" and haven't taken it out of my changer since.

Being passionate about vocal jazz has made me a bit of a snob about what does and doesn't cut it. No matter how much I try to find a contemporary jazz voice I like, I usually I prefer the classic singers like Ella, Irene Kral, Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan rather than the superficial new crop of jazz vocal spokesmodels. Margolis has changed all that for me. She is my new favorite.

Margolis sounds completely fresh, yet she obviously understands the tradition deeply. She has total command of her voice as an improvisational instrument and her emotional depth is so impressive. Her interplay with the wonderful back up trio is telepathic. You can't fake this stuff since it is recorded LIVE. That is the true acid test IMHO.

Margolis is the jazz singer of the future. I wish I could give this 100 stars. Buy this CD - if you like real jazz singing you won't be sorry!