Phat Man Dee & Friends Merry ChristmaChannahKwanzaa Vol 1.1

Jazz diva Phat Man Dee has released her festive “multicultural holiday album”, Phat Man Dee & Friends “Merry ChristmaChannahKwanzaa Vol 1.1. It features both “original and traditional holiday tunes in Mandee’s native Picksburghese, as well as French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Latin and English”. Phat Man Dee will be performing with Guaracha Latin Dance Band at the Intergalactic Holiday Spectacular, the CD’s science and music-filled release party, at the Buhl Digital Planetarium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Science Center on December 15, 2011 starting at 8 PM .

This album features Phat Man Dee with Miguel Sague III, Craig “Izzy” Arlet, Tony DePaolis, Tom Wendt, Hugh Prentiss, Mark Custer, Abby Gross, Simon Jaeger, Tall Paul Leech & Geña Eugenia N Escoriaza. The cover illustration created by Rob Rogers, political satirical cartoonist for the Pittsurgh Post Gazette and president of The Toonseum.

Three years in the making, this album kicks off with the infectious, soon-to-be smash hit “Picksburgh Xmas,” written by Phat Man Dee and Miguel Sague, III, bandleader of Guaracha Latin Dance Band. Here is a sample of the song’s hysterical, Pittsburghese-laden lyrics: “Rudolf’s a yinzer, or maybe yinz ain’t been told / When th’ Stillers er in th’ playoffs, his nose glows Black ‘n Gold” and “Fill up my stahcking with Black ‘n Gold snugglies, but don’t ferget th’ remix a Wiz Khalifa’s Black and Yellow CD!”

On the Puerto Rican Christmas classic “Aguinaldo,” Phat Man Dee deftly trades vocals with Mr. Sague (the song’s arranger) and Geña Eugenia N Escoriaza of Machete and America’s Latin Orchestra. The French are represented with a Middle Eastern and bluegrass fusion take on the 15th century’s “Un Flambeau, Jeanette Isabelle.” Phat Man Dee’s soaring, expressive voice envelops the disc’s virtuoso diversity with an inclusive sense of fun.