Dee Dee's official website can be found at http://www.deedeebridgewater.com

TRACKLISTING:
J'ai deux Amours
La Mer
Ne Me Quitte Pas
Mon Homme
Et Maintenant
Que Reste-t-il De Nous Amours
Dansez Sur Moi
La Belle Vie
Avec le Temps
La Vie En Rose
Les Feuilles Mortes
L'Hyme A L'Amour (Japan bonus track)

'J'ai Deux Amours,' Dee Dee Bridgewater's lush new CD of French love songs, has been a project in the works for almost ten years. A passionate song cycle that traces the story of a love affair (literally and figuratively) and all of the emotions which accompany it, 'J'ai Deux Amours' is a project which for Bridgewater truly emanates from the heart. All 12 tracks on the record are wonderfully suited to Brigewater's magnificent vocal range, intensity of expression and keen wit, and reflect a varied period of time in the history of French music. Universal Jazz will release 'J'ai Deux Amours' February 7 th internationally, with a U.S. release planned for late Spring. A world tour will commence in February.

The concept for 'J'ai Deux Amours' began in the mid-nineties when Bridgewater was living full-time in Paris. 'My time in France was (and continues to be) a period of healing, growth as a woman and an artist, and a discovery of the rest of the world,' says Bridgewater. 'As I began researching songs and finding the corresponding sheet music, an obvious story began unfolding reflective of both my personal life as well as my love for the country and people of France.'

All of the songs on 'J'ai Deux Amours' are of French origin with the exception of 'Girl Talk,' and most have been hit songs in their English versions. 'J'ai Deux Amours' and 'La Vie en Rose' were obvious choices as they symbolize Paris - the first being associated with legendary chanteuse and Black American female icon Josephine Baker; the second with Edith Piaf whom Bridgewater greatly admires as well. 'La Belle Vie/The Good Life' is a nod to composer Sacha Distel (who passed away this past July) as well as to Betty Carter, a major influence on Bridgewater who performed the song regularly as part of her set. 'Dansez Sur Moi,' the French version of 'Girl Talk,' was written and performed by French singer/poet/artist Claude Nougaro, whom Bridgewater performed on television with in the 90's and who also passed away in 2004. 'Avec le Temps,' composed by Leo Ferre, has never been recorded in English, although it is a classic in French.

As a matter of coincidence in 2004, Bridgewater was invited by Washington D.C.'s prestigious Kennedy Center to perform two special Valentine's Day concerts honoring 'Les chansons francaises' as part of a celebration honoring French culture. This was the first time the material was to be performed live, and the response was tremendous. Six months later, Bridgewater was in the studio recording 'J'ai Deux Amours.'

'J'ai Deux Amours' is Bridgewater's 16 th CD and is being released three years after her critically-acclaimed tribute to Kurt Weill, 'This Is New.' Bridgewater's career has always bridged musical genres and she earned her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones / Mel Louis Big Band . Throughout the 70's, she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach , Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon , and Dizzy Gillespie . After a foray into the pop world during the 1980's, she relocated to Paris and began to turn her attention back to jazz. She signed with the Verve label as both a performer and producer, released a series of acclaimed titles beginning with 'Keeping Tradition' in 1993. All of them-including her wildly successful double Grammy Award-winning tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, 'Dear Ella,' - have received Grammy nominations.

Interestingly, Bridgewater has also pursued a parallel career in musical theater. She won a Tony Award for her role as Glinda in The Wiz in 1975. Her other credits include Sophisticated Ladies, Black Ballad, Carmen Jones, and Lady Day, a Billie Holiday tribute for which Bridgewater received at Laurence Olivier Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. She became the first African American actress to play the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, a production staged at the Mogador Theatre in Paris.

Bridgewater currently splits her time between the U.S. and France. She is the host of NPR's Jazzset, now in its second decade on the air, and is also an honorary Ambassador to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Her recordings have sold millions of units worldwide and she continues to tour globally, performing to sold-out venues worldwide.

'J'ai Deux Amours' is my way of thanking France, a country that opened its arms to me,' says Bridgewater. 'Me, a little girl from Flint, Michigan! Like Josephine Baker, 'J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris.''

To view/send a Brazilian Girls e-card go to: http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/ecard.aspx?pid=11138&ecid=67&pl=n

Imagine Grace Jones, Blondie, The Sugar Cubes, and Astrud Gilberto having a wild party and you are only half way there...

This is the self-titled debut recording from New York's Brazilian Girls . The group, which got its start playing shows at the New York club Nublu, features four globetrotting members (none of whom are Brazilian and only one of whom is female). Singer Sabina Sciubba was born in Rome and raised in Munich and Nice, keyboardist Didi Gutman is from Buenos Aires. Bassist Jesse Murphy is from California and drummer Aaron Johnston from Kansas City. All four now call New York City home. Their eclectic dance album is produced by Brazilian Girls, co-produced and engineered by Hector Castillo (Bebel Gilberto, Phillip Glass) and mixed by Mark Plati (David Bowie, The Cure, Dee Lite).

The music of Brazilian Girls is equally inspired by the downtown New York City music scene as by the individual members' diverse geographic origins. Their debut album presents 12 songs sung in five different languages: German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. Provocative and seductive, songs like 'Lazy Lover,' 'Homme,' 'Don't Stop' and 'Pussy' evoke a fusion of influences including electro, dub, pop, punk and dance music. The band boasts an equally strong visual image, led by front-woman's Sciubba's grandiose style and commitment to incorporating a bold visual statement into the band's live performances.

For a complete list of tour dates, please visit www.vervemusicgroup.com or www.braziliangirls.info

Website: www.cristinabranco.com

TRACKLISTING
Sonhei que estava em Portugal / Anda Luzia
Alfonsina y el mar
Sete pedaços de vento
Redondo vocábulo
A case of you
Navio triste
Oh! Como se me alonga de ano em ano
Choro (Ai barco que me levasse)
Liberté
Cristal (Tinha algum vinho ainda)
Porque me olhas assim
E por vezes
Circe (Meu amor corre-me o corpo)
Gaivota
Fundos

Each of Cristina Branco's albums contains, in a more or less conscious way, the germ of the one that follows it : Sensus , the last disc by the Portuguese singer, was the exploration of the erotic vein that touched on the field of a song in the work before it, Corpo Iluminado . If it were necessary to find in Sensus an inspiration or trace the evolution of the sixth in Cristina's newest album, Ulisses , this would certainly be from the South American inflections of the 'Sonnet de Séparation' that Custodio Castelo composed for a text by Vinicius de Moraes and of 'O meu Amor' by Chico Buarque, and also for the latter song in the irruption of the piano into Cristina Branco's music.

Ulisses well deserves its name: Ulysses evokes voyages, adventure, wandering, love, leaving, returning . The myth of Ulysses could have been the origin of the Portuguese Saudade, this fatalistic nostalgia, marked by waiting, so linked with the sea and the uncertainties it generates .

There is a little of all of that in Cristina's Ulysses, and first of all an invitation to travel starting from the land and the culture of Portugal. Throughout Ulisses , Cristina Branco draws us into different lands, into different languages: South America and more specifically Argentina for 'Alfonsina y el Mar' sung of course in the Spanish language, English for the reprise of 'A Case of You' by Joni Mitchell, French for the musical adaptation of the famous poem by Paul Eluard, 'Liberté', to say nothing of 'Choro', cut here for the first time, but which Cristina and her musicians have been interpreting for a long time on stage, and for which the music by Custodio Castelo is inspired by African rhythms and colours.

Concerning the musicians, Cristina Branco also goes beyond her preceding acoustic frontiers. Cristina's usual performers are all here: the composer Custodio Castelo on the Portuguese guitar (on this whole album, in homage to his spiritual master, Custodio Castelo plays on the guitar owned by Carlos Paredes, who passed away last summer), Alexandre Silva on the Spanish guitar, Fernando Maia on the bass guitar, to say nothing of Miguel Carvalhinho on classical guitar, a guest for the space of one title on 'Choro'. But for the first time Cristina and Custodio introduce the piano in a whole album, here under the fingers of Ricardo Dias (who favours us besides with one of the most beautiful original works of the album with the composition 'Navio Triste'). The piano resonates too noticeably for this approach to be ordinary or gratuitous, and this instrument gives new colours to the young Portuguese singer's titles.

Tradition and modernity form a driving focus for this album. Although a number of songs of Ulisses do not intrinsically arise from fado, this nonetheless remains at the heart of Cristina's approach. The sole traditional fado of the album appears only in the second to last position on the album, with the reprise of 'Gaivota'. 'Gaivota', this song that speaks of a seagull, a sailor, a voyage, of love and of death. 'Gaivota', which thus seems to be a perfect intersection of the myth of Ulysses and of the fado imagination. Although 'Gaivota' could be classified as traditional fado, it should nonetheless not be forgotten that in the era of its creation by Amalia Rodrigues, the purists refused to consider it a real fado. Perhaps we could speak of 'new fado', and it is this doubtless that is meant in the lively 'Sete pedaços de vento', a title that respects the spirit of fado while fundamentally revising its form: first through its cheerfulness, but also through the fading together of the timbres of the piano and the guitars, relatively unprecedented in the world of fado.

It is not by accident that this song is located at the beginning of the album, and 'Gaivota' (nearly) at its end. Because anyone who says Ulysses says Ithaca, this return to the sources at the end of the voyage. For Cristina Branco, who travels throughout the world and throughout music, her 'Ithaca' is doubtless a multiple one:

- Geographical Ithaca, in this region of the Ribatejo to the north of Lisbon, where Cristina loves to rediscover herself and go back to her roots between her tours, and where she just recorded Ulisses upon her return from concerts in Japan, the United States and Australia

- A personal and intimate Ithaca without a doubt, that we will abstain from commenting on, in her new role as a mother

- A musical Ithaca, we understand, in this 'Gaivota', ultimately at the beginning and at the centre of the entire album. This song also reminds us how Cristina, a young student and fan of bossa nova jazz, suddenly discovered fado when her grandfather gave her a disc by Amalia.

- A thematic Ithaca in the return to the recurrent theme of love. Because although the album approaches the subject of Liberty with Eluard, of ageing with the sonnet by Camoes, and flirts with surrealism with 'Redondo vocabulo', love is omnipresent in the majority of the texts: 'A case of You' certainly, the very moving 'Porque me olhas assim', and the poem by Julio Pomar 'Meu amor corre - me o corpo', that Cristina wanted to rename 'Circe' for the occasion. Furthermore, Julio Pomar, friend of Cristina Branco, the most famous living painter of Portugal but also a poet, has painted a series devoted to the myth of Ulysses.

- Isn't there also a poetic Ithaca in the choice, for one of the songs on the album, of Camoes, the poet founder of Portuguese literature, omnipresent in the oeuvre of Cristina Branco since her first album?

- Finally, although Cristina's homeland is Portugal, her Ithaca on stage is The Netherlands, where she first experienced success. And it is on the stage of the great auditorium of the mythical Concertgebouw of Amsterdam that Cristina Branco created a number of the songs on this new album on 19 October 2004.

e-card: http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/ecard.aspx?pid=11083&ecid=68&pl=n

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT DAVID SANBORN
GRAMMY ® -winning saxophonist/composer to release new Verve disc in January

In the 1970s, David Sanborn came to define the saxophone in contemporary pop music through his work with David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Simon, and James Taylor. In the '80s, he defined the sound of the saxophone in contemporary jazz. Today, Sanborn is once again taking the lead as one of music's seminal figures, redefining his instrument and his place in music.

On Tuesday, January 11, 2005, David Sanborn will release Closer , the follow-up to Sanborn's 2003 GRAMMY ® -nominated Verve Records debut, timeagain .

For Closer , six-time GRAMMY ® -winner Sanborn selected music from an extensive array of songwriters and composers; everyone from Charlie Chaplin to James Taylor is represented here. Sanborn also contributes two original tunes to the mix.

On Closer , Sanborn surrounds himself with the same all-star ensemble that supported him on timeagain : the core group on the recording features Larry Goldings (electric piano, organ), Mike Mainieri (vibraphone), Russell Malone (guitar), Christian McBride (bass), Steve Gadd (drums), pianist/accordionist Gil Goldstein and Luis Quintero (percussion). Saxophonist Bob Sheppard makes a special appearance on one number. A dding to the overall cohesiveness of the project, legendary producer Stewart Levine again helms the production along with Joe Ferla , who engineered and mixed.

Closer begins with a sultry rendition of 'Tin Tin Deo' by Gil Fuller and Chano Pozo which then leads into Horace Silver 's classic 'Señor Blues,' one of two of the great pianist's works on the record. (The other is 'Enchantment.') Other songs on this new recording include the upbeat 'Capetown Fringe' ( Abdullah Ibrahim ) as well as a heartfelt reading of Charlie Chaplin's iconic 'Smile,' which was co-written by Chaplin along with Geoffrey Parsons and John Turner .

One of Closer 's highlights is Sanborn's take on James Taylor 's timeless 'Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight.' This beautiful rendition features vocals by the talented young singer Lizz Wright , Sanborn's Verve labelmate.

Rounding out the collection are 'Ballad of the Sad Young Men' by Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman , 'Poinciana' by Nat Simon and Buddy Bernier , and 'You Must Believe in Spring' by Michel Legrand , Alan Bergman , Marilyn Bergman , and Jacques Demy , along with the saxophonist's two new compositions: 'Another Time, Another Place' and 'Sofia.'

TRACKLISTING
When I Fall in Love
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
Someone to Watch Over Me
My Funny Valentine
Where Are You?
Love Is Here to Stay
Time After Time
Stardust
Tell Me When
Time on My Hands
Over the Rainbow

Ben Webster knew how to set the scene for love. Few saxophonists have ever made the silences between the notes speak so eloquently; few have ever caressed a ballad with such smoldering intensity. When Webster applied his warm, roomy sound to a love song, he aimed straight for the heart -- and he never missed.

With stellar accompaniment from the likes of Oscar Peterson and Gerry Mulligan, these performances of such evergreens as 'When I Fall in Love,' 'My Funny Valentine,' and 'Over the Rainbow' are vintage Ben Webster, guaranteed to melt even the coldest heart.

TRACKLISTING
I Loves You, Porgy
Wild Is the Wind
What More Can I Say
T he Last Rose of Summer
Don't Smoke in Bed
Fodder on My Wings
Little Girl Blue
If I Should Lose You
I Love My Baby
If You Knew/Let It Be Me
Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair

Nina Simone's vocal and piano style, a blend of jazz, folk, pop, off-Broadway hip, and many other elements, was unique. So was her take on matters of the heart. Her interpretations of familiar love songs were rarely tender, passive, or sweet -- but they were always passionate and powerful.

Listen to these eleven bracing, unsentimental lessons in love, and you will never think of that most universal subject in quite the same way again.