★★★★★
Pink Martini as an idea and Pink Martini in execution are two different things. The former is a daring concept: take a talented group of polyglots with an affinity for global music and throw them all together into a recording studio and tell them to not hold back. The songs that make up Pink Martini's six studio LPs reflect the collective's omnivorous musical proclivities. Hop genres nearly every song! Alternate between singing in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-03-14
★★★★★
Pink MartiniGet HappyWrasse Records2013Buy the CD Performing live, Pink Martini are a delight, with their fusion of glamour, classy musicianship and songs from around the world. It's a formula that has brought them international success, and it depends largely on the enthusiasm and versatility of singer China Forbes...
- www.theguardian.com
2013-09-20
★★★★★
To call Pink Martini eclectic is like calling calculus complicated. Duh, that's kind of the point. What else would one expect from a 14-piece ensemble who features a harp and a cello as well as congas and bongos or from an album that includes guest stars as varied as Luis from television's Sesame Street on one tune ("Sing") and Frida Kahlo's 90-year-old former lover Chavela Vargas on another ( "Piensa en mi")? The music is purposely international and cosmopolitan...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
They may be from the Northwest, but Pink Martini's musical world seems limitless. "Hey Eugene" is a smart romp through genres and geographies, from the Lower East Side to the Middle East and beyond. An impressive live band, Pink Martini has been finessing some of these songs onstage since their last release, 2004's "Hang On Little Tomato...
- www.soundspike.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
With their global outlook, Pink Martini have a piquant appreciation for the fact that the composer of one of America's best-known Christmas songs was born a Russian Jew...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2010-12-06
★★★★★
Portland, Oregon 13-piece mini-orchestra Pink Martini bring their jazzing, lounging "music of the world, but not world music" philosophy to this holiday-themed album and, unsurprisingly, they nail it like a big fat Christmas stocking to poles north, west, south and east. The Martinis take us to Europe and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and back to the Americas in an atmospheric, high-flying Santa's sleigh-esque flight around the globe...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-30
★★★★★
Portland's eclectic 12-piece 'little orchestra' have always teetered between sincere affection for the diverse range of music they mine, and an undeniable penchant for retro kitsch. So it's no surprise that their fifth release turns out to be a full-blown Christmas album. Or, as the press release puts it, a "non-denominational and inclusive holiday album", consisting of (mostly) well-known Christmas and other festive songs from around the world...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
The members of Portland's Pink Martini have covered plenty of well-known songs in their decade and a half together, like "Que Sera, Sera" on their 1997 debut, and the theme from I Dream of Jeannie in their early live shows. So they have no quarrel with popularity. Compared with most other acts that have sold more than a million records, however, this little big band seem utterly uninterested in the realm of Top 40 pop — at least as the Top 40 has behaved since the mid '60s or so...
- thephoenix.com
2010-08-24
★★★★★
Album number four from the always delectable Portland, Oregon-based Pink Martini is, as you would expect, an impeccably crafted blend of intimacy and exuberance. Cheeky, chic, sassy, clever and sexy in equal measure, it shows the baker's dozen-strong outfit maturing with a sure-footed, lightly worn elegance...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2010-08-22