Guitar Romantics

After the creative and commercial misfire of their third album, Strictly Personal, Detroit's the Romantics took a step in the right direction with their next effort, 1983's In Heat. While the hard rock production of Strictly Personal was pure overkill, In Heat was the band's leanest effort to date, and though producer Pete Solly doesn't reprise the neo-Shel Talmy sound he brought to their debut, he puts the focus here on the group's strengths — straightforward pop/rock tunes with a big beat, big hooks, sharp harmonies and plenty of energy. It also helped that Mike Skill returned to the band for this LP as bassist, bringing a knack for a good tune with him, and Coz Canler learned to rein in his guitar style, giving the performances on this disc a tighter and more compact sound that fits the material just right.

In Heat is the fourth album by the American band the Romantics. It was released in 1983 on Nemperor Records. It was the Romantics' most commercially successful album, and featured the Romantics's biggest hit single: "Talking in Your Sleep", peaking at #3, and a second top 40 hit, "One in a Million", charted #37.

Bach’s Clavier Übung is a good example of an understatement. Übung means exercise, practice; if one were to judge the book by its cover, the obvious deduction would be that Bach’s Clavier Übung is a set of finger exercises, in the fashion of Hanon or Czerny. To be sure, Domenico Scarlatti’s magnificent keyboard Sonatas are likewise called Essercizii, “exercises”; and they are far from a dry form of gymnastics for fingers. Moreover, etymologically “exercitium” relates to training in the martial arts (from exercitus, the army); thus, it was also a training in virtue. The Latin word virtus is at the root of its English translation, “virtue”, but is also related to vir, man (the soldier, the hero), and to “virtuosity”, which today indicates also technical prowess and musical accomplishment.

This is a 2-for-1 compact disc of the first two albums by The Romantics. This was released by the American Beat label in 2008 and are the full length versions of each album.

In this past decade, Jazz has re-introduced itself into popular song through classic or retro sounds and pop music has further entered into the Jazz songbook embracing and expanding itself to new audiences. In this spirit, the eMPathia Jazz Duo, consisting of Mafalda Minnozzi’s vocals and Paul Ricci’s guitars, is presenting its third CD in a short two-year period. This CD entitled “Cool Romantics” caps off a trilogy and arrives at an evolution in their sound that was pre-destined. It is a sound which has come full circle to go beyond the retro sonority and to delight in the interplay of an ever-refined dialogue with a more adventurous improvisational spirit that taps into the intimate beings of the musicians depicting their unique experiences and intriguing story of life.