Peter Reinhart

The funkiest guitarist from Detroit returns with his newest instrumental offering "Rhythm and the Beat". If you aren't a fan of instrumental music then this should change your perceptions. The CD opens with the sexy soul rock of "Funkolina Brown" where stanky rhythm melody guitar is king. The dubstop inflected "Secret Plot Deep" gets down and nasty on a hard rock funk feel. "Groovellephacus" is a four on the floor monster with its funky Wes Montgomery style guitar and Was Not Was keyboardist Jamie Muhoberac working his sonic magic throughout. This outing also sees Randy J letting loose on lead vocals with the blues laden "Lets Get Funky Tonight" and the down home track "Omazing with Keb Mo bassist Reggie McBride on the upright bass.

This is an excellent spoof/satire of all things American with a side swipe at impoverished European royalty and the operetta genre to boot. Deborah Riedel is absolutely magnificent both in her acting and her singing. Her intentional horribly bad American accent in German is absolutely hilarious and is exactly the way so many Americans speak German although never so completely and swiftly. Yet when she sings, her German, of course, is impeccable and unaccented for, after all, she is an opera singer and will go only so far to dumb down.

Das Orchester "La Petite Bande" wurde 1972 von Sigiswald Kuijken gegründet. Ursprünglich war der Anlass der Gründung lediglich eine Tonaufnahme von Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme von Lully. Der Erfolg dieser und der der nachfolgenden Aufnahmen war jedoch so überwältigend, dass "La Petite Bande" sich als ständiges Orchester etablierte und seitdem regelmäßig Konzerte gegeben hat. Diese Box beinhaltet eine Auswahl von hervorragenden 10 CDs aus der umfangreichen Diskographie dieses Orchesters.