It does not get any better than this
Stenie M. Di Sospiro | DC Area | 10/10/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
""Soul Parade" takes Jesse DeNatale's journey into interstellar overdrive. Don't get me wrong: "Shangri-La West" is truly great, but "Soul Parade" defies superlatives. The legendary guitarist Andres Segovia wrote: "A song on a piano is a discourse; on a cello, an elegy; on a guitar, a song is just a song." In "Soul Parade" the piano dominates, as if the troubadour, having found a welcoming court, could stop traveling and give a rest to his portable instrument. Why, in this splendid court a grand piano is put at his disposal. So the troubadour atypically sits down, and no longer writes songs, but... discourses. Yet he is made of such golden stuff, he is so pure at heart, his "discourses" are not pompous, or boring. Just more profound and resonant, but as moving as ever, more than ever, perhpas. For that is the point: DeNatale's songs can be happy or sad, funny or haunting, but always involving. Listening to his songs is a participatory experience for the audience: they move us. And there lies the difference: there is so much soul in them, it spills over into the audience. This is a work of genius and compassion at the same time."
Shining Really Bright
Jerry L. Withrow | Elizabethtown, North Carolina United States | 10/02/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is more a note of appreciation than a review. I find myself returning to this CD again and again as a paliative to the pain my country seems wedded to at present. The phrase may have lost some of its power from sentimental abuse, but I'll still insist this is a "life-affirming" work of the first order. It dances and whirls, roughly breathing one man's vision of America's streets, and my goodness... he's smiling! I'll venture that you will too as you're caught in these twelve carny spells - cast as shrewd witchery of the Waits/Springsteen order - yet identifiably now, the welcome voice of Jesse De Natale. Thanks.... now everybody dive in."
Something Clever
Thomas R. Hodges | Peoria, IL | 11/16/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Soul Parade is an incredible album of imemense depth and will be enjoyed by anyone who loves music. Shangri la West is fecking rad as well."