Just For Fun - Beleza

Just For Fun cover

Artist: Beleza

Album: Just For Fun

Age Range:

Review: The colorful cover of Beleza's first album for families, Just for Fun, doesn't particularly stand out among kids music releases -- kindie covers are rarely monochromatic.  But the music inside is far more distinctive, a mix of Brazilian music and jazz with a light touch and playful core.  Without diminishing Humberto Oliveira Sales' guitar work and playing on other instruments, it's Madeleine Holly-Sales' vocals that most give this album a festive but sophisticated air.  With a nifty blend of English-language covers (a swingin' "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book, "Little Liza Jane" with nifty guitar work, and a bilingual "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad") and songs in Portuguese (including "O Pato," about a duck and made famous Stateside by João Gilberto, Stan Getz, and Astrud Gilberto), the 33-minute album is like a jet down to Rio for a kid-friendly Carnaval weekend.  (Should one of those things exist.)  Definitely recommended.

Note: I was provided a copy of this album for possible review.

Buy One Get One Flea - Dog on Fleas

Artist:  Dog on Fleas

Album:  Buy One Get One Flea

Age Range: 4 through 9

Description:  Saying that "band X sounds like band Y" is easy shorthand for music reviewers, but there is no easy shorthand for New York's Dog on Fleas.  Their sound is sui generis, a mixture of jazz, vaudeville, and breezy pop that has no analog on the kids music scene.  (It doesn't have many analogues in music, period.)  On their eighth album, the band emphasizes the jazzier elements of their nature in songs like album opener "Hinterlands" and "It's a Ruse" and "Pardon My Pajamas" (side note: how has that song title not been turned into a kids song before now?).  The band is sometimes too weird for its own good -- while I dug the brief kazoo-accented takes on a couple orchestral classics by the "Backyard Dorkestra," songs like "Dry Beans" and the jokey "High School Reunion" were almost too weird (and that's saying something for a Fleas album).  I mean, when Dean Jones can toss off beautiful and uplifting pop songs like "Thinking Good Thoughts" and merge the sweet and silly on "If I Were You I'd Give Me a Kiss," it spoils the listener for anything else.

You can stream several songs from the 33-minute album here.  I'm not sure if this is the quintessential Fleas album (I still have a great deal of fondness for When I Get Little, and their "hits" collection The Bestest of the Best is a fine introduction to their wild and eclectic career), but Buy One Get One Flea will still make your family smile and dance, which is reason enough.  Recommended.

Shine and the Moonbeams - Shine and the Moonbeams

Artist: Shine and the Moonbeams

 Album: Shine and the Moonbeams

Age Range : 4 through 10

Description: Most of what I wanted to say about the long-awaited debut album from the New York City band I said in my NPR review of the album, but I wanted reemphasize how happy that Shawana Kemp finally got her album out into the world.  While it's not really the first R&B and soul album in kids music, it's the first that got the sometimes insular "kids music world" excited.  And while it's the songs that deal with real-life social issues like bullying and self-respect that could give this album a long shelf life with schools and families, I'm also looking forward to sillier, groovier, jazzier songs along the lines of "Do You Ever Stop" and "Shake for Eight."  Lots of fun, lets hope the success of this one makes the follow-up come out faster.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of this album for possible review. 

WeBop: A Family Jazz Party! - Jazz at Lincoln Center (feat. Matt Wilson)

Artist: Jazz at Lincoln Center's WeBop program

Album: WeBop: A Family Jazz Party!

Age Range: 2-7

Description: "My favorite jazz-for-kids album since at least Putumayo's Jazz Playground disk from a couple years ago, and definitely my favorite non-compilation since the great Medeski, Martin & Wood album Let's Go Everywhere... Highly recommended." / Full review