Virginia Constantine & The Little Big Band - The Bumpy Road To Love (2007)

Virginia Constantine comes from a line of famous French artists. Back in the 50s and 60s, her dad shared the bill with Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker at the famous Olympia theatre in Paris; he was a great Jazz pianist and song-writer. Mum sang at the Sands Hotel in New-York where she met many of her heroes: Nat king Cole, Orson Wells, Marilyn Monroe...Which led to her being offered a contract with MGM, which she turned down! So she headed back to France and some years later :-), Virginia was born... While performing the Paris jazz club circuit, she met up with a very talented British pianist/composer, Brendan Walsh and the two of them decided to move to the UK, never leave each other :-) and make music together; that's how the album "The Bumpy Road to Love" came to be...
It's a labour of love and fun, as the people playing on it are all UK top musicians and dedicated their precious time to the project.The drummer and percussionist is no other than Virginia's brother who traveled from Paris to lend his fiery swing to the band... One could say the overall sound is slightly different from the smooth & polished approach that usually comes with standard Jazz recordings.While the smoothness can be found in Virginia's vocals, Jim Mullen's magical guitar licks or Gary Barnacle's warm & powerful saxophone lines,a lot went on in the post- production room, which allowed the "little big band" to experiment with added sounds and effects to try and give each song its own unique character; sometimes a bit wild and crazy, sometimes classical and emotional.... So come and enjoy the ride on this” Bumpy road to Love”……~Cdbaby