“New York City Lullabies”

60 minute stereo CD
Available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jsl and http://www.lullabologist.com/

“… spontaneous performances that bring lullabies to life for the listener.” ~ New York Folklore

“This one-of-a-kind collection, released in 1983 was never actually intended for the commercial market. Partially funded by the New York State Council on the Arts, it was the project of a nonprofit arts organization seeking to preserve American folk songs and lore. That it now continues to be requested nationwide, is a testament to the resonant power of these diverse songs, sung by ordinary people and their kids.

Coproducer Julia Soto Lebentritt found willing participants all over her Lower East Side neighborhood and other parts of the city – in a Chinese restaurant, in the home of a Dominican neighbor, in a Ukrainian sandal shop. They sing and speak from the heart about the bedtime rituals of their respective cultures, often their happiest and most vivid recollections of growing up.

The crooning is in Yiddish, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Italian, English, and Chinese; instead of instruments, one hears real-life sounds of traffic, babies crying, children at play. “New York City Lullabies” won a place in my daughter’s nightly routine for many years. In the end both of us responded, I think, to the overriding sense of a bond between singer/soryteller and child; it reaches down deep.”

~ Carol Canter, “A Little Night Music,”  Parenting,  November, 1991.