Search - Saint Germain Des Pres Cafe :: Vol. 7-Saint Germain Des Pres Cafe

What is this?

Jose L. Rodriguez | Riverdale, NY United States | 01/14/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I have no idea what Wagram was trying to accomplish with this compilation...at its best, it is a distant shadow from the quality of the other six volumes. The songs in the first cd are lame and sound too holiday-ish....I had to check the CD player once the music was playing to verify I was indeed playing a SGDPC series CD.

The second volume is equally lame and lacks the "kick" that has come to define the SGDPC series.

Don't waste your money on this one!"

Not bad, Not great.

bordersj2 | Boston | 02/02/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"First and foremost... Saint Germain Des Pres Cafe is NOT a Ludovic Navarre cd. I think it's said on every compilation but always bears repeating. NO, this is NOT a St. Germain CD... it is not a CD from the same artist that released "Boulevard", "Tourist", or even "Memento" under the Soel moniker. Having said all that, I definitely love the different perspective on the other review. I think it pretty much defines the series. The past few editions of this series have been erratic, and in some ways I think other compilations of Wagram's that I like have been the same, particularly Hotel Costes.



I kind of liked this one and it presented a first in the series - a double disc set. Disc one is the usual from the series, jazz, nu-jazz and broken beats. It starts out with Paulo Fedreghini & Marco Bianchi's "Oriental Smile", a song that's really consistent with Schema tunes of today with big bossa and male and female vocals. Speaking of Schema' The Five Corners Quintet slip in a song later called "This could Be the Start of Something". The song starts out beautifully, but I quickly fell out of love when the vocal came in. Sicania Soul had a festive percussion feel to it and I do like Povo's "Uam Uam", however I could've sworn I heard it on an earlier edition of this series but guess I'm confusing that with the dozens of other series it's been on. Tosca's "Pyjama" is a pretty slick number though and Beat Assailant, IMO, closes out the cd pretty well. The Second disc of this one is more of a 'dedication to Ladies in Nu-Jazz'. I kind of liked this one to be honest with you - especially the tracks by Tok Tok Tak, Re:Jazz and Jeanette Lindstrom in addition to Fertile Ground's "Yellow Daisies". It's a solid cd, but is rather low-key in general.



And here's where this gets tricky - I liked a lot of the songs on this but to be perfectly honest, this one had a 'been there done that' kind of feel to it, especially when a tune like "Uam Uam" from around 2001 is used as a new jazz cut - I guess the Moonstar remix would have been a little fresher. In some ways I guess the series might be showing the age, so they did decide to do something quite different and add a themed second cd, which was IMO a good idea otherwise the 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 might've been 3. In the end this wasn't a cd that floored me at all, but was a capable entry in the series; yet at the same time one that raises the question of the future of the series. Wagram's been known for a bit of saturation; the Des Pres Cafe series, Paris Lounge series, Costes series and Buddha Bar series sometimes have track duplication. I think Paris Lounge is done (the last one was "24 Hours in Paris"), but I wonder what's next."