Search - Scott Joplin, Billy Mayerl, George Gershwin :: Gladrags

If you like the Labeque Sisters You'll Like Gladrags

Doug - Haydn Fan | California | 04/16/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Labeques have always been a far more exciting piano team than anyone else. This take on Ragtime, first released in 1983 and sounding very good in this latest 2004 reissue, was in many ways inevitable - their upfront and fun-loving music-making naturally is right at home in Ragtime, and combined with considerable French panache resulted in a great CD. One is unlikely to hear a better balance of authenticity and pure class in this music - indeed, if the performances were any more stylish they would cross-over into being prettified. But such is the talent on display and their wonderful rythmic dynamism that this never really becomes an issue. My only caveat is that two pianos playing Ragtime can be almost too much of a good thing: wonderful as this CD is I personally would never listen to all these selections back to back. Unless of course the Labeque sisters were perfoming them live! Frankly I'd be happy to watch them play Chopsticks together, which they no doubt could do in a most engaging way. Listening to the pair of them feeding off each other in Ragtime is definitely an enlivening experience!

The samples give an excellent idea of what you are in for - an explosion of irrestisble out-of-the-box musical energy! There is a preponderence of Scott Joplin, with eight selections out of eleven, so this album might have better been labeled "The Labeques Play Joplin".

The great jazz pianist Eubie Blake who as a youngster in the 1890's was writing rags died the year this CD was made - a striking reminder of how close at hand is the music the Labeques perform."