Cangelosi Records for Sale!

You, yes, you, can own your very own Cangelosi Cards CD! I know, it sounds like the impossible dream, but the impossible has become a reality. The record, entitled The Cangelosi Cards: Clinton Street Recordings contains eight tracks:

My Blue Heaven

It's Like Reaching For The Moon

Blue Yodel No. 2

Ida

September Song

Putting On The Ritz

Treasures Untold

and Anniversary Song

all played by the full eight piece band:

Jake Sanders, guitar

Tamar Korn, vocals

Cassidy Holden, bass

Matt Musselman, trombone

Dennis Lichtman, clarinet and mandolin

Marcus Millius, harmonicas

Karl Meyer, fiddle

and Gordon Webster, piano

The record is wonderful! I've been DJing a few of the tunes and have gotten some pretty funny reactions when people first hear Tamar's voice coming through the speakers. There are some nice, danceable tracks, but this is not a CD aimed primarily at dancers, this is a complex bundle of tunes than can give the listener the gift of ears. This is a record to put on at home with a cup of tea and no competing stimulus. This is a record that will make both your ears, heart, and dancing stronger. 

The Cards have changed how we dance, but they've also changed how we listen to music. I've been listening to jazz since the day I was born, but listening to the Cards over the past two years has opened up my mind and given me the greatest ears I could hope to obtain. 

My favorite tune is September Song. When the band was deciding which take to put on the record, they were deciding between a technically-better sounding version, and a more emotional version that better expressed the sentiment of the song. The more perfect-but-less-"perfect" one made it onto the record, a clear demonstration of what makes this band and their first record so damn good.

While the physical record is not immediately purchasable online, I do believe you can download it. those of you who do not live in or around NYC would do well to click here.

So if you want one, simply track down the band at one of its many weekly gigs. The record costs ten dollars. 

Article

Excerpts about the Cangelosi Cards (mainly Tamar here, though the entirety of it includes more about the other musicians) from an essay I submitted to my world music professor:

"The venue for their show is called the Telephone Bar. The bar is completely unremarkable when one first enters, just a typical St. Mark's place Irish pub. The one redeeming feature is the abundance of actual English telephone booths at the entrance, but there was nowhere for a band to set up. The first time I went to see them, I asked the hostess if in fact the Cangelosi Cards were playing and she led me to a back room. Through heavy glass doors decorated with white lace curtains, I entered a long, thin, candlelit room with mirrors covering every inch of wall possible. At least fifty people were crowded into the small room, sitting on banquets, chairs, stairs, anywhere. The band was all the way at the end of the room with a fireplace crackling behind them." 

"Then they played a sort of introductory phrase, bum-bada-da-bum-ba-da-daaaaaa! A young woman next to me with short cropped brown hair, a high-waisted skirt, and little black heeled boots, walked through the mess of chairs and tables up to the front to join the band. She nodded to the steel-guitarist and sang an intro for Blue Skies, an intro I didn't even know existed! She finished, there were a few moments of silence and the band launched into a gentle but incredibly swinging rendition of Blue Skies. "Blue skies, smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see. Never saw the sun shining so bright, never saw things going so right. Noticing the days hurrying by, when you're in love, my how they fly." "

Tamar Korn

"The appreciation I have for Tamar's voice is practically indescribable. She would have easily held her own with the greats: Ella, Billie, Louis. Her voice is a mix of those old blues singers and some country bluegrass. Her strange nationless accent is totally unaffected, and her dance steps and movement completely natural, she is the perfect modern day representative for the glory days of these tunes. She is fememine and awkward, silly and serious, cute and beautiful, technical and playful, young and old. Her improvisation is equal to that of any other musician. She played an imaginary fiddle, yodeled, mewed, scatted, and generally had the audience in the palm of her hand. She meant each word she said and became one with the sentiment of each song. "

The Cangelosi Cards play an engagment party.

"The music of the Cangelosi Cards is considered a largely forgotten genre, but consciously or not we all seek out that comforting sound of fiddles and harmonicas, old tunes about love and blue moons. Jazz, gospel, bluegrass, ragtime, country music: this is the collective lullaby of the American people. It is the subconscious popular music that we associate with hard working happy families living the American dream of due reward and inherent equality. When I first heard this music being played in a fresh way, and saw people around me of all ages and backgrounds entranced by it, I knew I'd found the real deal. The band was much more than an imitation of Hot Fives and Sevens, they were tight and relaxed, and while preserving the roots of jazz they effortlessly combined it with a folkly fiddly vibe. I hope that in the future traditional jazz will become popular in the mainstream again, especially to help us through the coming recession depression. Banjo pickin' and learning four part harmonies is something we can all learn to do while waiting for our 401(k)s to return."