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pianoman

      As of early 2015, I've recorded 26 musical albums on CD discs since retiring. Most of them contain my piano tributes to various decades of American popular song; three are odes to wonderful composers. One each is devoted to American folk songs, ragtime, Irish melodies, Christmas carols and yuletide popular songs. I sing on five of them, four of which feature duets with the marvelous professional vocalist, Annette Sanders; and two contain ensemble singing by the choruses of senior citizens I've been playing for weekly over the past dozen years.

      Each of the 32 album covers is shown below, together with a brief description of the contents.

 
By clicking on the link below the album description, you can access its list of songs, together with additional information (such as my personal favorites). You can then listen to one, several, or all of the tunes on the album by following the directions provided below. I suggest using external speakers or headphones for the best quality reception. If you would like to have any of the albums (each of which contains extensive liner notes on the songs and the period) at no cost, just e-mail me at jim.freund@mac.com and tell me where to send them.
 
TO LISTEN TO THE SONGS FROM A PARTICULAR ALBUM, CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW THE DESCRIPTION OF EACH ALBUM LISTED BY SCROLLING DOWN THIS PAGE. AFTER YOU HAVE CLICKED ON THE ALBUM.
JIM FREUND PLAYS FOLK-ROCK TUNES FROM THE 60s, 70s and 80s  

This album features my solo piano versions of folk-rock songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s, which required a different piano technique than my usual jazz-flavored approach to standards. I've recorded the sogns over the years on the albums picured on this year's cover and collected tem a decade ago in    Jim's Retrospective at 80.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

      
TRIBUTE TO JIMMY VAN HEUSEN  

The new CD is a Tribute to Jimmy Van Heusen, the highly-regarded composer who wrote so many of the hit songs recorded by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. My favorite professional vocalist, Annette Sanders, and I (assisted by several gifted musicians) assembled for the album 22 of Van Heusen’s best tunes – some newly recorded this year, others from our previous albums – and I wrote some extensive liner notes about the songs and our performances.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

      
BALLADS GALORE  

I had recorded eight previous albums with my favorite vocalist, Annette Sanders, before the pandemic shut us down for several years – Annette having moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles to be near her family. This year, however, things opened up enough that we were able to get together in Manhattan for a two-day musical session in the living room of my apartment.

I then added some tracks of solo piano, and we included two ballads that we had recorded previously for the blog with master vibraphonist Warren Chiasson and my long-term bass guru Dmitri Kolesnik. The result of all this is a new album titled BALLADS GALORE – 75 minutes of fresh treatments on memorable standards.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

     
THE BEST OF ANNETTE AND – JIM 2004 - 2019  

The Best of Annette and Jim 2004-2019, a two disc album featuring that wonderful professional vocalist, my friend Annette Sanders, with one disc devoted to our duets and the other to her vocal solos (with accompaniment by myself and other musicians).

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

   
THE BEST OF JIM AND DMITRI – 1999 - 2019 PIANO AND BASS DUO

The Best of Jim and Dmitri 1999-2019 Piano and Bass Duo, which spotlights the splendid bassist Dmitri Kolesnik accompanying me on the piano to jam 35 great tunes.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

   
SHELTER-IN-PLACE

The annual albums I’ve been making in recent years have been performed in my NYC living room, where there’s a fine Steinway B piano, some good recording equipment, and the services of my talented assistant Raymond, who manages to pull it all together. This year, however, I was stuck in CT, with a lesser quality Yamaha grand piano, an eight-inch gizmo recording device, seven barking dogs, and no Raymond. Still, I was playing a lot, and decided to make what I call My No-Frills Shelter-in-Place album.  It contains short unaccompanied piano treatments of 40 slow-to-medium tempo tunes, absent any frills and reflecting the sober side of sheltering-in-place for many months this year. Quality-wise it may not be up to the other recordings I’ve made, but I’m pleased at having been able to generate this one by myself (a process elucidated in the Liner Notes) amid the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.  

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

   
VASCILLATING RHYTHM

         Vacillating Rhythm, is my seventh collaboration with Annette Sanders, a wonderful professional vocalist. For this disc, we’ve taken 20 popular standards from the ‘20s. ‘30s and ‘40s, each of which sounds good when played at more than just one tempo. Our treatment of each song ranges from ballad to up-tempo with the rhythmic punch supplied by my frequent pro colleague, bassist Dmitri Kolesnik. Tom Freund joins us here on a memorable version of It’s Only a Paper Moon. I encourage you to read the accompanying liner notes. I’m dedicating the album to Barbara, not just because she came up with its title – listen to the final bars of Love is Here to Stay to hear how I feel about this wonderful woman.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

    
THE PASSAGE OF TIME

         This year it’s a CD album entitled The Passage of Time – my sixth collaboration with Annette Sanders, a wonderful professional vocalist. The 23 songs, all popular standards, focus on various elements of time – exploring memories of good days past, comparing them with the present, and looking ahead to the future. The title comes from James Taylor’s song, The Secret O’ Life, with its memorable lyric (“The secret o’ life is enjoying the passage of time”) – and my son Tom contributes a fine rendition of that song.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

    
JUST FRIENDS – 'Deed We Do –Sensuous Scats on Timeless Tunes

         The musical offering this year is a two-disc CD album entitled Just Friends – my fifth collaboration with Annette Sanders, a wonderful professional vocalist. The first disc contains a variety of our favorite songs, ranging from lovely ballads to jazz classics to “list” song duets, from the years represented in the Great American Songbook.  The second disc is quite unique, I think – I’m playing on piano (without elaboration or accompaniment) three dozen slow ballad standards (primarily from the ’30s and ’40s), while Annette scats marvelous improvisations on top of each tune. (It’s all spelled out on liner notes for each disc.) I think you’ll enjoy the album.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

   
THIS TIME JUST THE WORDS –Jim Freund's Essays from the '80s, read by the author

         "This Time, Just the Words” contains my spoken versions of 26 essays I wrote in the early ’80s. The subjects are varied – vacations, negotiating, the reasoning mind, interacting with others, being exposed to some memorable advice. I really enjoyed reading my own stuff aloud, and I hope you’ll find it a good companion – say, for long drives in your car.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

    
DUETS – Jim on Vibes & Freund on Piano

         The CD this year is titled DUETS – the two instruments in question being piano and vibes (vibraphone) – with the new feature being that I’m playing both of them! It was a real challenge, and the liner notes contain details about how my invaluable recording colleague, Raymond, and I went about it. The songs (mostly ballads) are all favorites from the Swing Era – the ’30s and ’40s. I hope you’ll enjoy the fresh sound.

         CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

 

  

       

 
THE DREAM ALBUM

         A favorite getaway theme of songwriters in the ’30s (during the Great Depression) and ’40s (throughout World War II) was dreaming. For this album, I’ve selected 19 songs that contain some variant of “dream” in the title and were published during those two decades (six from the ’30s, 13 from the ‘40s), plus one earlier and two more recent numbers.

            Although dreams can arrive in plenty of different forms, including nightmares and hallucinations, the great bulk of these songs deal with romance – love that’s often in bloom, or sometimes just on the verge, or occasionally unrequited.

 

         The melodies are by fine composers, including two each by Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and Jimmy Van Heusen. Top lyricists are also represented – three by Gus Cahn and two each by Oscar Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and Eddie De Lange.

         I'm in the piano throughout, play vibes on two tracks and contribute several vocals. But the star of the album is my buddy, Annette Sanders, a superb professional vical stylist. Annette is of the top of her game with these beguiling ballads. Also featured are world class vibraphone virtuoso, Warren Chiasson, and superb guitarist, Ed MacEachen, plus the first-rate professional bassist Dmitri Kolesnik on all rhythm numbers.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
JIM'S RETROSPECTIVE AT 80 – Five Discs of my Piano and Vocal Favorites

     I decided to take a look back at the twenty five albums (containing almost 1000 songs) I'd recorded over 18 years since retirement from the law firm; and I selected 129 of my favorite tracks for a new five-disc album entitled Jim's Retrospective at 80. Each disc has a different motif -- my vocals with a jazz trio, vocal duets with the incomparable Annette Sanders, rhythmic instrumentals with professional bassist Dmitri Kolesnik and other musicians, solo piano on standard ballads, and solo piano on folk-rock tunes of a later period.

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

 

    
PLAY IT AGAIN SAM JIM –Melodies That Endure As Time Goes By * LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY – Beguiling Ballads of the 40's

     Play It Again, Sam Jim and Long Ago and Far Away contain 36 of my favorite standards. The first disc contains piano versions (supported by Dmitri Kolesnik on bass) of songs having distinctive verses, with more improvising on my part than usual. On the second disc, I'm accompanying the marvelous professional vocalist, my friend Annette Sanders, on beguiling ballads from the '40s at slow but rhythmic tempos.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

    

BRING HIM HOME –THE ENGAGING MELODIES OF THE '80s

     Until recently, I haven't dared to venture into musical pastures later than the '70s. But the decade of the '80s was so good for me in other ways (marrying Barbara, doing big M&A deals, etc.), that I finally decided to make an album of songs from the contemporary music scene. To my surprise, I found a number of fine melodies, at slow to medium speeds, that sounded okay on solo piano.

     Broadway – especially Andrew Lloyd Webber and Les Miserables (including my title song) – proved to be a fine source of product, as were the movies and composers such as Michael Legrand and Johnny Mandel, writing tunes with the premier lyricists of the decade, Alan and Marilyn Bergman. There's also a nifty tune, Baby Sitter, written by my talented singer-songwriter son, Tom Freund.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

    

IN A MELLOW TONE –A PIANO TRIBUTE TO THE BOUNTIFUL MELODIES OF DUKE ELLINGTON

      This album of 40 songs on two discs is dedicated to music composed by the great Duke Ellington. Some are ballads, some up-tempo, most are jazz-flavored – the man could do it all. The tunes range over five decades, but 34 of them come from his most productive period of the '30s and '40s.

      We recorded this on my Steinway B in our New York living room, with the dogs huddled in the bedroom. On 24 of the tracks, I was accompanied by my favorite bassist, Dmitri Kolesnik.

      Of all my piano albums, I'm most proud of this one. It's the best I've ever played – terrific songs, pronounced shifts in mood from tune to tune, performed on a quality instrument, and with great accompaniment.

  

 

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

 

 
ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE – 52 BUOYANT SONGS TO LIFT YOUR SPIRITS THROUGHTOUT THE YEAR
      The concept behind this album is to lift listeners out of the doldrums of pessimism and downbeat news into a joyously affirmative attitude. Here on two discs are 52 positive-thinking, glass-half-full (but non-romantic) songs – one a week, to lift our spirits throughout the year.

      Since the lyrics are all-important to the theme, this is a vocal album in which I'm joined by Annette Sanders, a superb professional song stylist. On many of the songs – especially the upbeat ones – we're accompanied by my excellent long-time bassist, Dmitri Kolesnik. World-class vibraphonist Warren Chiasson chimes in on four of the tunes, and a fine professional guitarist, Ethan Mann, plays on another four.
  

      We accomplished all this in the living room of my New York apartment – the phones were off the hook, and the dogs and cats behaved reasonably well – and we were even able to overdub voice and instruments.

      The songs span the decades from the '20s through the '70s. For the occasion, I wrote and recorded "Jim's Rose-Colored Riff," in which we name and have a rhyme for every one of the 52 titles, while restating our positive theme.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! – JIM FREUND'S PIANO VERSIONS OF 50 OF BARBARA'S FAVORITE SONGS ON THE OCCASION OF OUR BIG 25TH!
      This album is a tribute to my fabulous wife, Barbara Fox, marking our 25th wedding anniversary celebrated in January 2010. We've had a wonderful marriage, and music has long been one of our enduring ties.

      These 50 songs on two discs – mostly ballads in slow or medium time – are all favorites of Barbara. Of these, 43 date from the '60s and '70s – not my natural piano habitat of the '30s and '40s – and they have a different feel and rhythmic pattern; but I try to play them in the appropriate boomer spirit, and a number of them have become special favorites of mine.
  

      I love this woman. As the songwriter wrote, "Every day that you are mine / will be a lovely day / As long as love still wears a smile / I know that we'll be two for the road / And that's a long, long while."

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

LOEWE (WITHOUT LERNER) – THE MELODIES FOR SOLO PIANO
      This solo piano album is a toast to one of Broadway's two elite songwriting duos, Fritz Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner – to stand beside my album, Rodgers (without Hammerstein), celebrating the other prominent musical comedy pair. Loewe's melodies are lovely and tuneful – sometimes sprightly, often melancholy – and they stand up well, even without Lerner's incomparable lyrics.

      The songs (of which there are 39, including medleys, on 26 tracks) come primarily from four Broadway musicals of note – "Brigadoon" (1947), "Paint Your Wagon" (1951), their masterpiece "My Fair Lady" (1956), and "Camelot" (1960) – as well as the brilliant movie "Gigi", which garnered more Oscars in 1958 than any picture in history.
  

 

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
RODGERS (WITHOUT HAMMERSTEIN) – THE BALLADS FOR SOLO PIANO
rodgers

      I recorded this while undergoing a bout of tendonitis in my right wrist, so all I could handle were slow ballads played quite simply. Now my wrist is better, but since the results sounded okay, I released the album. The reason it's not too bad is because the ballads I chose were two dozen of Rodgers and Hammerstein's finest – songs that create (at least for my generation) instant nostalgia for the years we were growing up. And although the Dick Rodgers tunes are often viewed as simply platforms for Oscar Hammerstein's incomparable lyrics, I think the melodies Dick wrote – especially for the ballads – are quite fine in their own right.

 

      There are four selections each from "Oklahoma" (1943), "Carousel" (1945), "South Pacific" (1949) and "The King and I" (1951); three from "The Sound of Music" (1959); and two each from "Allegro" (1947), "Flower Drum Song" (1958), and the movie "State Fair" (1945).

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
 
A SALUTE TO RAGTIME – JIM FREUND PLAYS THE EUPHONIC MELODIES OF SCOTT JOPLIN
scott

      Ever since listening to the soundtrack of the 1972 movie, "The Sting," I've had a yen for ragtime. Scott Joplin, who wrote over 50 pieces between 1896 and 1917, is the unquestioned king of ragtime. On this disc, I excerpted themes from 39 of his works.

      Ragtime has a syncopated melody in the treble against a steady accompaniment in the left hand. Adapted from the march, polka and quadrille, it fused with African musical ideas in the southern states.

     

  

      Although many fine pianists play Joplin at a quick tempo, I don't – taking the composer at his cautionary word ("Don't play this piece fast. It is never right to play 'ragtime' fast"). At the slower pace, you can feel the soulfulness that emerges.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
 
ONCE UPON A TIME – SIX DECADES OF MELODIOUS BALLADS

once

      The idea motivating this recording, which is a compilation of piano recordings from my other albums, was to demonstrate that beneath the apparent differences in style and substance among the ballads of various decades, they share underlying quaities that make them fit together well when played side by side. This album contains 29 ballads – two from the '20s, three from the '30s, six from the '40s, four from the '50s and seven each from the '60s and '70s. I've arranged the material so that contrasting styles from different periods are juxtaposed throughout.

  

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
THE JOINT IS JUMPIN' – THREE DOZEN UP-TEMPO TUNES FOR YOUR NEXT PARTY
joint

      With one exception, these three dozen upbeat tunes are all piano recordings from other albums of mine – tunes with a pronounced beat and feel-good sense. But there's none of that strident ear-splitting stuff that characterizes much of today's up-tempo sound. Put it this way: on this album, the joint is definitely jumpin', but it won't vex the neighbors – so it's ideal for your next lively party.

      Many of the tracks are enhanced by Dmitri Kolesnik's superb bass accompaniment. The album also contains three tunes (Nos. 2, 5 and 10) featuring retired federal judge Lee Sarokin on drums (from the Thanks for the Memories album).

  

And listen to my sons, Tom and Erik, play fine bass and drums with me on the final track.

CLICK ON HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
 
 
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK – A PIANO TRIBUTE TO THE BIG APPLE

autumn

      My first book of photos, Central Park – A Photographic Excursion, was scheduled to be published by Fordham University Press in November of 2001, when the tragic events of September 11th occurred. We were moved by the worldwide empathy directed at our town's citizens. My wife Barbara came up with the idea of my recording on the piano a number of songs related to New York City – something we could give our friends along with the book. I thought it was a fine idea, and this album is the result.

 

  

      No city has been the subject of as many popular songs as New York. This disc is a compilation of 35 tunes that I culled from over a hundred possibilities. The locales referred to in the lyrics stretch from Harlem to 42nd Street to Central Park to Broadway – all around the town. The album, which features Dmitri Kolesnik on bass, was recorded over a three-day period in my living room.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
WHEN I'M 64 – THE JIM FREUND TRIO
64

      This album represented a distinct break-out for me. In the years right after retirement, I was singing and playing in public with a trio – my piano, Andrei Ryabov's guitar and Dmitri Kolesnik's bass – aiming for a sound somewhere between the Nat King Cole Trio of the early '40s and John Pizzarelli's group in the '90s. Dmitri and Andrei, excellent professional musicians who have played on a number of my albums, came to New York some years back from St. Petersburg, Russia; and much of the album's flavor is due to their fine musicianship.

      In addition to my having the temerity to sing,

 

the other distinctive element of these songs is that they have a pulse. Some really swing, but even with the more sedate ones, you can feel the rhythmic underpinnings. It's mostly an upbeat mood, designed to make you feel good – which was just how I was feeling in the late '90's, taking advantage of the opportunities retirement offered to do some things I'd long wanted to do. We recorded this at home on amateur equipment, with the phones off the hook and the little bell collar removed from the neck of our ubiquitous cat.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
IT'S THREE QUARTER TIME – A CORNUCOPIA OF POPULAR AMERICAN WALTZES
waltz

This represents my most extensive musical project – four discs, 192 tunes, 268 minutes of three-quarter time. There’s a great deal of variety in the waltz format in terms of texture, tempo, and the sound that each tune projects – yet I find they fit together to create a melodious whole.

            Many of the finest waltzes came from Broadway shows, and these are featured on Disc I. On Disc II are my 30 favorite waltzes from other than Broadway shows (in fact, half of them came from movies) – spanning the decades of the ’20s through the ’70s. Disc III contains medleys of
 

82 songs, dating back to the turn of the century and continuing to its midpoint. Disc IV is wide-ranging – from my salute to classical music and operettas, to Italian and Irish melodies, to ragtime and contemporary composers.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
BOTH SIDES NOW – THE SOFTER SOUND OF THE '60's
60s

      This album was a real departure for me. My piano repertoire had traditionaly been rooted in the popular music of the prior decades; and when the musical transformation of the '60's occured, I chose to remain blissfully ignorant of what was happening. But, like it or not, the '60s spawned a revolution in American popular music – embracing realistic feelings about people and their quality of life. And the singer-songwriters moved on from their folk roots in a variety of imaginative ways.

 

      When I finally woke up to the '60s music, it was to the softer sounds – often obscured on records by an amplified rock beat. I found tunes with engaging or poignant melodies that could be played on solo piano in slow or medium tempos. And that's what you'll hear on this album.

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THE WAY WE WERE – THE SENSUOUS SOUNDS OF THE '70's
70

      Although the musical linkage between the '70s and the '60s is evident, the major difference is that, unlike the '60s output, the songs of the '70s aren't nearly as didactic or tied to social causes. Many involve odes to romantic love or an affirmation of the goodness of life. I'm not crazy about all the lyrics, but the melodies are attractive, and some of the structures and harmonic progressions hold real interest.

      I've chosen songs that fit the album's subtitle of "sensuous sounds," so there are no Rolling Stones

  

or Led Zeppelin entries. Over 80% of the songs were written in the years 1970-1974, presaging (to my mind) a real quality decline in the later years of the decade.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES – FORTY SONGS FOR THE AGES
thanks

      This two-disc set – my 70th birthday present to myself – is probably my favorite album, because it has a little of everything: a wonderful vocalist, Annette Sanders; fine musicians including Warren Chiasson, a world-class jazz vibraphone virtuoso (who played wiht the George Shearing Quintet), bassist Dmitri Kolesnik, guitarist Andrei Ryabov, and drummer/retired judge Lee Sarokin. I got to sing both solos and duets with Annette, to play solo piano and in groups, and to accompany the vocals. It's 150 minutes of songs written by premier American composers, many of which trigger fond recollections.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

  

 

 
 
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES – THE DUETS

duets

      As my 75th birthday approached, I realized that some of my favorite musical moments occurred in the 14 duets I sang with Annette Sanders, in the two disc 40-track album we made in 2004 titled "Thanks for the Memories." (You can find that album by scrolling up the page.) So, as a birthday present to myself, I packaged the duets in this separate album.

      Annette, is a marvelous professional vocalist who sang with Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz and other greats. Her voice is remarkable – warm and tender on ballads, and swinging in flawless rhythm on up-tempo numbers, always

 

hitting the center of every note, and adorning the songs with very tasty improvisations and endings. (I've also made a disc, entitled But Beautiful, of Annette's 15 superb vocal solos from the original album, which I'll be happy to send you upon request.) As for me, well, I tried my best; and while I'm not going to give up my day job (as if I had one), I'm not uncomfortable listening to myself – especially when Annette joins in to carry me along. And I do confess to taking some pride in my piano accompaniments throughout.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
34 FROM '34 – A TUNEFUL COMPILATION OF THE SONGS OF 1934
34
      As my 75th birthday neared, I decided to go back to the year of my birth, 1934. That year, smack in the depth of The Great Depression, was an extraordinarily productive 12 months for American popular music. I selected 34 of the best songs from a variety of fine composers – tunes that have become enduring standards by writers such as Porter, Berlin, Kern, Rodgers, Duke and Warren. Only George Gershwin (fully absorbed that year with scoring "Porgy and Bess") is missing. It's hard to believe this marvelous compendium emanated from a single year.
 
     By the way. I wasn't the only birth that year. Some of my compatriots in the nursery were Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Shirley MacLaine, Hank Aaron, Bart Starr, Bill Russell, Norman Schwarzkorf, Ralph Nader, Gloria Steinem – and don't forget the Dionne Quintuplets.

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'ROUND MIDNIGHT
round

      This CD is a 2002 repackaging of an audio cassette I made for my friends in late 1996 (my first recording), when I retired from the active practice of law. The album features solo piano renditions of 26 of my favorite tunes. The theme of the collection is expressed in the album title – these ballads are the kind of tunes I like to play late in the evening when no one else is around. The mood is quiet and reflective.

      Each song comes from the pen of a different composer, but many are not the standard pieces

 

most familiar to us. Of the 26 songs in the album, 16 are from the '40's, with the rest spread out among the '20s, '30s, '50s and '60s – nothing later than that.

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YOUNG AT HEART – 80 SONGS FROM OUR COLLEGE YEARS
young

      For the 50th Reunion of my Princeton Class of 1956, I created this two-disc set of 80 songs that were originally published during our college years (1952 through 1956). Disc I contains my piano renditions of 36 tunes (seven with Dmitri Kolesnik on bass), including a number of fine ballads with a solid jazz feel. Disc II is a singalong, featuring the senior citizens of Hamilton and Goddard-Riverside Senior Centers in Manhattan, where I've been playing each week for well over a decade since retirement (for more information on the Public Service section of the website). The 35 singers and I recorded these 44 songs in just two long afternoon

 

sessions. I attached to the album a booklet containing lyrics to the songs on Disc II for those who might be interested in singing along.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
SONGS OF THE WORLD WAR I YEARS – 1914-1918
ww

      For this album, I pulled together 50 songs from the World War I years, 1914 to 1918. There are precious few survivors of this era alive today, but the songs are quite good – many became hits again in later years – and deserve to be memorialized for future generations.

      I called upon the two NYC senior citizen singalong groups I play for weekly – at Hamilton Senior Center and Goddard Riverside Senior Center – to sing these songs, and I interspersed my narration concerning the period and the songs.

 

      I'm quite proud of the results – it's a rousing tribute to a significant time in the life of our nation.

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CHESTNUTS ROASTING – A PIANO TRIBUTE TO THE YULETIDE SEASON

      This solo piano album, which represents a bookend to my earlier Carols Galore album, is a salute to the enduring popular holiday standards I play each yuletide to accompany singers celebrating the season.

      Of the 30 songs on the album, over half were composed in the '40's and '50s; but two of the best are from 1934, my year of birth, and are featured on my 34 From '34 album. The ballads from the World War II years are especially evocative, while a number of the songs are up-tempo paeans to winter.

      Christmastime meant a lot to me growing up. The family business pioneered the creation of

  

outdoor holiday displays on Fifth Avenue, most notably the Christmas angels at Rockefeller Center – still a staple of the scene after almost six decades. And every Christmas day, my mother (who just celebrated her 104th birthday on December 25, 2011) and father hosted a large family gathering at our apartment, where I played some of these songs on our living room piano.

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CAROLS GALORE – A PIANO TRIBUTE TO THE YULETIDE SEASON
xmas

      Every Christmas season, I find myself at the piano accompanying groups singing carols (as well as the seasonal popular songs). But it took me some time to realize how elegant the simple carol melodies really are – something that can best be appreciated when they're disengaged from the words. And although an organ is the usual instrument of choice for sacred music, I favored the more tuneful sound produced by the grand piano.

      On this album, I've ventured beyond the 20-odd best known carols to select 58 of the finest (that's

  

the limit of the CD format, or more would have been included). Most have English, German or American roots, and a number have versions in different cultures. Some are quite hymn-like; others have the texture of lullabies; and at least one is a march. (The album's liner notes contain some historical background for the carols.) This album is designed to be played softly in the background as you go about trimming the tree or otherwise celebrating the holiday season.

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OLD FOLK – A TRIBUTE TO AMERICA'S FOLK SONG HERITAGE
old

      A few years ago, having become appalled at the contempt Americans were held in around the world, I thought that a journey back in time to our roots might reconnect us briefly with our true selves in a positive way. On the album are 72 songs – equal to my years when I made the recording and (at an average of one minute per song) about the maximum includable on a single disc.

      America's folk song heritage – an amalgam of strains from around the world, befitting our diverse origins – is a rich musical tradition. In addition to true folk songs, I've included some composed songs – such as those by Stephen Foster – that have entered into the public consciousness as folk songs.

 

      Since I'm playing the songs on the piano without vocals, and since the chord structures are quite simple and the rhythm straightforward, I chose songs whose melodies were interesting, plaintive, or lively – melodies that stand up well when divorced from the words. In deference to one of my favorite instruments, I also included harmonica segments on several tunes, in duets I overdubbed with the piano.

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WEARING OF THE GREEN – A PIANO MEDLEY OF IRISH MELODIES BY JIM FREUND
IRISH

      I was turned on to Irish music a few decades back by the rousing sounds of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Until I made this album, however, my piano efforts had been limited to late night singalong renditions of "Danny Boy." But the melodies of authentic Irish music (as distinguished from the sentimental Irish-American favorites that we all know) are wonderful, and sound just fine on the piano (as contrasted with a fiddle or pennywhistle). To my mind, they're even better when divorced from their emotional tales of doomed uprisings and mournful loves and their

 

heartfelt odes to the bottle. The 36 tunes I've chosen are a mix of the old and the new, the sad and the vigorous, the familiar and others less so, and they feature various time signatures and tempos.

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TOM FREUND – TWO MOONS

      My son, Tom Freund, is an excellent singer-songwriter, with a home base in Los Angeles. He has made a number of albums, and here is his most recent, titled Two Moons. If you would like to know more about Tom, his gigs and recordings, go to his website tomfreund.com or Itunes.

 

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