Our Review
Gary Sattezahn has been regaling me with everything but cat calls all season long: bird calls, monkey calls, more bird calls, the works. So, I was surprised to get another Sattezahn offering this season--yet more bird calls--this one a brand new 2006 release entitled More Carols from the Birds.
Well, I don't know what Sattezahn's been sampling back in the studio, because he's come out with the wackiest, cleverest, chirpingest bag of bird calls so far. The truth is, I just can't get enough of this new bird music. Birds have a positive connotation in my head, I guess. When I hear birds, I know I'm outside, probably someplace good. There isn't enough bird noise in my everyday world, and so I'll take what comes.
In addition to being wacky, these new programmed treatments are strange and wonderful music, music unlike anything else you'll hear. Sattezahn has somehow gotten inside the strange cadences of birds and animals, and his special genius is a knack for incorporating these as notes and phrases in regular musical scores. The effect is, at times, stupendous. There were several outstanding tunes (and perhaps a repeat or two from the previous CDs) on More Carols from the Birds, but the one I put five stars next to is Ding Dong Merrily On High, where a fine instrumental arrangement meets a fine flock of birds, and the sweetly textured cacophony is well and truly joined.
The sounds used in the creation of these CDs are truly breathtaking, when presented this way. In its way, Sattezahn's flight of fancy is as important (and at least as entertaining) as that produced by Chip Davis in the 1980s and 1990s. Everyone will enjoy More Carols from the Birds.
--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2006)
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From the liner notes:
Members of the world-reknowned Avian Chorale: Black-headed Grosbeck, Blue Jay, Bobwhite, Canadian Goose, Canyon Wren, Cardinal, Chipping Sparrow, Crow, Fox Sparrow, Gray Catbird, Hairy Woodpecker, Loon, Mallard, Mountain Chickadee, Northern Flicker, Northern Mockingbird, Prairie Falcon, Red-naped Sapsucker, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Robin, Rufous-sided Towhee, Steller's Jay, Vesper Sparrow Western Tanager Whippoorwill
The Avian Chorale & The FowlHarmonic Orchestra
More Carols from the Birds
Artist link
Label: AniMelodies
Length: 39 minutes
Genre: Novelty
Release: 2006
Track List
| Song Title |
|---|
| Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer |
| The Cradle Song |
| Carol Of The Bells |
| Ding Dong Merrily On High |
| A Holly Jolly Christmas |
| Winter Wonderland |
| God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen |
| Waltz Of The Flowers |
| Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella |
| Frosty The Sonw Man |
| The Little Drummer Boy |
| Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant |
| Still, Still, Still |
| Auld Lang Syne |