Reviews About The Hot Frittatas
Dirty Linen
February-March 2005 Issue
…Invitation to Dance. That’s what the latest effort the keepers of the Ballo Liscio flame will indeed make you want to do: dance. This time, the trio is joined by Kazu Maruoka on tuba and Jim Kohn, whose clarinet playing gives a Klezmer feel to “Polka Milanese” and “Jim’s Farewell Tarantella.” They tiptoe into South America with “Cavaquinho Balada” and “Tango delle Stelle.” Gus Garelick, as usual, does a great job on both mandolin and fiddle, although I am partial to the pairing of mandolin with Dennis Hadley’s accordion. That’s tasty. Don Coffin holds things together with his solid guitar playing. This is great fun, another enjoyable effort from the group worthy of your attention.
Mandolin Magazine
Dix Bruce, Summer 2004
Invitation to the Dance is by the Northern California group The Hot Frittatas. It’s a collection of…dance tunes arranged for a European café ensemble, with a core of fiddle/mandolin, guitar, and accordion, augmented with bass and a variety of other instruments. Within this framework, the music is quite varied and eclectic.
Though the musicians describe their work as Italian music in the Ballo Liscio tradition, different cuts have Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Portuguese, Klezmer and even Brazilian pedigrees. It all has a decidedly ethnic sound and feel, with a range of traditions explored beautifully.
Mandolinist (and fiddler) Gus Garelick is prominently featured on many of the tunes and varies his sound and techniques according to the requirements of each genre. His superb playing fits each very well. Gus is also credited with the arrangements of all the tunes.
Overall, the CD offers a great sampler of what’s possible for the mandolin on these different types of music and in a variety of ensembles.
Dix sez: “Check it out!”
Folkworks
Kurt MacInnis, September-October, 2004 (Los Angeles)
The first and most important news: this CD is a GOOD one! It has already brought me a lot of listening pleasure, and I’m looking forward to learning several of the selections… The highest compliment I can pay to fellow musicians is to learn what they do.
This is Italian music; it makes no reference to the Anglo/Irish tradition nor to old-time or Bluegrass styles. It comes through the nostalgic Italian-American tradition of the ‘teens and twenties in New York, from sources ultimately European. As a mandolinist, I find this CD to be particularly valuable…. The disc concentrates on the mandolin and violin melodies played by Gus Garelick, with careful melodic statements and accompaniment from the accordion (Dennis Hadley) and guitar (Don Coffin).
This is the second Hot Frittatas CD, and it shows many improvements over the first, Caffe Liscio (which, by the way, is lots of fun… in its own right). An expanded band includes … clarinet, bass, tuba and flute. The added instruments happily have been carefully directed and arranged [and] the recording… is more sophisticated. Ardent traditionalists may miss the ‘live’ sound of the first CD, which comes off like a good home recording of old friends playing favorite traditional tunes. I feel the care shown in selecting additional players and arranging their parts was well spent, and shows a logical direction in growth for the band and their repertoire.
The selection of tunes shows good variety in form and rhythm, from tarantellas to polkas and waltzes. Some of the tunes are quite new to me… Related listening might include: the first Hot Frittatas CD, Caffe Liscio, Ricardo Tesi’s Un Ballo Liscio, the Rounder collection Italian String Virtuosi, and two Global Village CDs: Speranze Perdute and L’Appuntamento.
Hats off to the band!
Dirty Linen magazine
October-November 2002
“From San Francisco’s North Beach cafe society comes the Hot Frittatas, with nary a smidge of egg on their faces as they play music they’ve gathered from years of listening to traditional Italian and Sicilian music. They’ve been inspired by New-World maestri, namely Matteo Casserino and the late Rudy Cipolla. The group, actually based in Santa Rosa, includes Dennis Hadley, who squeezes the accordion, Don Coffin on guitar, and Gus Garelick, switching between mandolin and violin. It’s fun when Garelick cuts loose on the mandolin on polkas like “Napoli China e Femmine” and “Signora Fortuna.” The selections are a lively mix of cafe tunes, tarantellas, mazurkas, and, yes, the obligatory “Funiculi Funicula” acting as the coda. You can almost smell the cappucino.”
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
(October 4, 2001 By John Beck)
“Cornering the market on Italian and Sicilian instrumental music, The Hot Frittatas are guaranteed to serve up a heel-kicking, lip-smacking platter of polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, tarantellas, marches and paso-dobles at this year’s Sonoma County Harvest Fair. Don’t think of one-minute eggs, think of slow-simmering, skirt-flapping music cooked over a low heat. Locals might recognize mandolinist Gus Garelick, squeeze-box maestro Dennis Hadley and guitarist Don Coffin, but once they transform into The Hot Frittatas they become Augostino di Gorelli on violino e mandolino, Dionysius Hadjidakus on accordeon and Donello Coffino on chittara. As their latest album, “Cafe Liscio,” boasts, the Santa Rosa trio not only showcases the Ballo Liscio style of Italian music, but also French cafe, Russian and East European, and Latin styles. And with a little encouragement, they’ve been know to dive into a healthy round of Cajun hoedown jamming. A sample of the CD proves the band's old-world range: The song “Tenebre Infinite” mixes candlelight chianti with Fellini’s “La Strada,” whereas “Parigina Polka” is a Parisian polka the trio picked up from Berkeley's Ellis Island Old World Folk Band. And “Speranze Perdute” spins lost hope in the tradition of great operas, condensing nearly a century's worth of longing into less than four minutes.”
You can reach the Hot Frittatas
in Santa Rosa at (707) 526-7763
or in Lake County at (707) 995-0658.
Or find us on the web at www.hotfrittatas.com.
For more information contact:
Don Coffin don@hotfrittatas.com
Gus Garelick gus@hotfrittatas.com
