★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Compared to Streisand, Garland, and Callas, said to augur a New Era of Popular Song, this two-time Tony winner proudly situates her big range and Juilliard technique on the far side of the chasm now separating Broadway theater from American music. Aficionados may follow the (satiric?) logic of, for instance, the sudden high note that punctuates the Adam Guettel-William Makepeace Thackeray trifle "A Tragic Story...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
As on her excellent first album, 1998's Way Back to Paradise, on How Glory Goes, Audra McDonald boldly introduces a collection of little-known theater songs by contemporary composers. This time she also sanctifies such classic numbers as "Bill" and "The Man That Got Away" with her luminous soprano. Still, the very best number on this wonderful disc may be a breathtaking modern lullaby, never before recorded, called "I Won't Mind."
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
If it hadn't been for a minor accident last month, you'd have seen a lot more column inches for this celebrated young Broadway diva...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Despite his status as a former Doobie Brother, Michael McDonald ranks as one of the ultimate blue-eyed soul talents by virtue of his anguished, fallen-angel tenor. The singer-songwriter's expressiveness enables this overdue collection to transcend its bombastic '80s drumsandplastic synth filigree. The oldest, jazziest grooves, particularly "I Keep Forgettin'" (sampled in Warren G's "Regulate"), still smolder, and the Patti LaBelle duet "On My Own" remains Burt Bacharach's greatest post-'60s ...
- www.blender.com
2009-03-21
★★★★★
Audra McDonald's third solo album was called Happy Songs, which wasn't entirely an accurate description of the contents. Her fourth CD, Build a Bridge, might have been called Unhappy Songs, since it consists largely of compositions with lovelorn lyrics. But a better way to think of it is as her take on music of the rock era...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Audra McDonald's third album may be called Happy Songs, but the cover -- on which she is depicted in sepia tone, inserted into a photograph from the 1940s, dolled up in period getup, and looking like she's waiting for a train -- suggests that the title is intended ironically, a suggestion further documented by a perusal of the songs on the back cover, which include Irving Berlin's anti-lynching ballad "Supper Time" and Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's "Ill Wind (You're Blowin' Me No Good)...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
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