David Scott Crawford

Pop Nouveau.

This may best describe the style of “Belle Époque”, the new album by David Scott Crawford. Scheduled for release in October of 2006, this rich collection of fourteen new original songs is a ‘must have’.

The production of the album, built around Crawford’s vocals and performances on Steinway and Böesendorfer grand pianos, includes cinematic lyrics and rich arrangements.

Recorded in Chicago, Los Angeles and London, mixed in England by David Hentschel, and mastered at Abbey Road Studios, the songs invite listeners on a musical odyssey beginning with the psychedelic musings of “A Merry Little Afternoon”, to the angular avant garde overtones of Parisian theater on “Black Box”. The film noir mood of the title track “Belle Époque” ponders the parallels between the era of Art Nouveau and our uncertain transition into the 21st Century.

“The common core of this album is truly the piano, bass guitar and drums,” says Crawford. “Upon that we embellish and weave various instruments and arrangements suited for the imagery of the songs. It was really a joy to work with all the musicians, who played everything from pedal steel guitar to accordion, mandolin to the weird and ambient tones of Mark Goldenberg’s electric guitar.”

A striking element to “Belle Époque” is four orchestral arrangements by Grammy Award winner, Paul Buckmaster. The arrangements for songs on “Belle Epoque” show the brilliance of Buckmaster’s varied and innovative orchestral style. Case in point is the swirling strings on “Black Box (Theater)”-run through a Leslie speaker. The orchestra on “Père Lachaise” captures the dramatic and moody flavor of French Opera. “Tuesday Morning (Before the Phone Rang) settles in for a more intimate chamber orchestra feel. Perhaps most striking are the flavors of Erik Satie and Debussy on the instrumental piece for piano and orchestra entitled “Requiem”, co-composed by Crawford and Buckmaster. See Link Gallery for detailed Bios of “Belle Epoque” Personnel

“People who want a category for this music always ask, ‘What style is your music?’ I am reminded of a quote by Jimmy Webb; ‘Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.’ But what sums up this album for me is ‘Pop Nouveau’ .”
Release Date (Available to the Public)-October 24, 2006.
- Pink Ambulance Records Announces...

" An imaginative storyteller with an astonishing range of musical styles that cut across cultures and eras, David Scott Crawford doesn't merely recreate a 19th century Parisian Golden Age in his latest CD, Belle Epoque. He gets inside its racy, maudlin and romantic themes and timbres to evoke an uncontrived theatrical realm of human fate and folly. The exacting singer-songwriter manages to bring to life recognizable French icons, from Toulouse-Lautrec to Edith Piaf. Yet Crawford doesn't reduce them to easy cliches. He threads together the spirit of their art in song vignettes (Black Box, Pere Lachaise), rich in sweeping orchestrations and quirky chord changes reminiscent of everything from French operetta and musical theater to sultry jazz clubs and funky street musicians. Belle Epoque may reference the macabre (the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried or a tribute to Lizzie Siddal, wife of Pre-Raphaelite painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti who later exhumed her body to retrieve a buried volume of poetry). But Crawford infuses a certain Victorian death fascination with exuberant and multilayered life. His world is a marvelous stage for all that is grandly human."

Lucia Mauro has been writing about the performing arts throughout the Chicago area since 1988. She is an arts writer and dance critic whose work appears in the Chicago Tribune (including WomanNews), Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Collection, Front Desk Magazine, Footlights, DanceMagazine, Pointe Magazine, Dance Teacher, Dance Spirit, Stage Directions, and more. Lucia has reviewed theater for the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Pioneer Press, NewCity, UR Chicago, PerformInk, In Theatre Magazine and her website, www.chicagotheater.com. She has interviewed and written about Edward Albee, Robert Altman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Roberto Benigni, Tony Curtis, Dennis Franz, Tony Kushner, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Al Pacino, Ed Paschke, Ann Reinking, Maria Tallchief, Studs Terkel, Twyla Tharp, Lina Wertmuller, and more artistic luminaries. From 1993 to 2005, Lucia published her original Italy travel narratives in Fra Noi, a national Italian-American newspaper.
- Lucia Mauro (see below)

"Sweepingly ethereal....richly imaginative.....Crawford fuses elements of folk, pop, classical, Elizabethan and musical theater."

Reviewed by Lucia Mauro- Pioneer Press, Chicago - Pioneer Press, Oak Leaves

"Sweepingly ethereal....richly imaginative.....Crawford fuses elements of folk, pop, classical, Elizabethan and musical theater."

Reviewed by Lucia Mauro- Pioneer Press, Chicago - Pioneer Press, Oak Leaves