“…a vibrant, diverse holiday record that sees Lisa B working through a number of Christmas standards, originals, and Jewish tunes with an energy that is enchanting.”
 - Jordan Richardson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
 
“The sure-bet holiday music that should be playing in hipper households over the next few months. Tasty throughout.”
- Chris Spector, Midwest Record
 
“Lisa B helps you cover a great deal of seasonal ground in this eclectic, fun and highly entertaining release.”
- Brent Black, @Critical Jazz blog and Courier-journal.com
 
“An ambitious undertaking…  there’s something here for everyone, and Ms. Bernstein’s energy is so palpable –- you can’t help but be drawn in… highly recommended.”  
– Doug Boynton, Girlsingers.org
 
“Authenticate[s] and liven[s] up the usual Christmas fare … takes on a few traditional songs with an exuberant, confident flair…  [an] atmospheric, message-centered album...  [in] three jazz, R&B, and Sting-esque original compositions, her daring bravado shows brightly.”
 - Carol Banks Weber, jazz critic, Examiner.com

 

The New CD from Lisa B: Christmas Time Is Here (and Chanukah and the Solstice)
 
Including:
* Christmas Time Is Here (composed by Vince Guaraldi and Lee Mendelson)
* Hine Ma Tov (traditional)
* Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow! (composed by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne)
* My Favorite Things (composed by Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers)
* Miracle (composed by Matisyahu)
* Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (composed by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin)
* This Christmas (composed by Donny Hathaway and Nadine McKinnor)
* Holiday in Oakland (composed by Lisa Bernstein and James Gardiner)
* The Flame (composed by Lisa Bernstein and James Gardiner)
* Winter Solstice (composed by Lisa Bernstein and James Gardiner)
* Christmas Time Is Here - instrumental version
 
Featuring: Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), vocals; James Gardiner, multiple instruments; Adam Shulman, keyboard; John Wiitala, bass; Alan Hall, drums; and Anna Lissa Patterson, background vocals

 
Widget below plays all tunes full-length (not viewable in Internet Explorer; try another browser).




 
 
Thanks for supporting independent music! Purchase via:
1.



2. Amazon including individual MP3 tracks, CLICK HERE
(For Amazon, please buy new - others are selling promos or bootlegs.)
 
3. PayPal using "Add to Cart" button
4. CDBaby store below

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 The New CDBaby Store: a wonderful retailer for indie music!
(Scroll below for links to iTunes and Amazon)

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The new single “Holiday in Oakland”
 from “Christmas Time Is Here (and Chanukah and the Solstice”)!  
 
An old-school, up-to-the-minute, soulful, sung, and spoken celebration of Oakland from the hills to the bay (including the amazing music our Town has produced). Play and sing it on every holiday!
 
Track by Jim (James) Gardiner (composer, educator, producer, engineer), who runs Gardiner Music Mentoring and Pajama Recording Studios near Jack London Square.

Anna Lissa Patterson sang the background vocals, creating both downhome excitement and luscious ambience.

50% of profits to fund a kids' poetry workshop at the Allendale Rec Center, not far from Lisa's house in Oakland.
 
“‘Holiday in Oakland’ … is an effortless, breezy sweep through the decidedly R&B-gospel influences of that tough but tender city… her rap is flawless, and unobtrusive, because the “Bump City” references blend evenly, like redwoods, salsa in the dark, Tower of Power, the Pointer Sisters, and Digital Underground.”
- Carol Banks Weber, jazz critic, Examiner.com
 
 


 

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                            Scroll down to check out these CDs and books......

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     Poems by Second-Graders
     from Anna Yates Elementary School
    Emeryville, California
 
     Edited by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)
 
     Proceeds benefit student activities 

 
     Purchase at
     Emery Ed Fund: "Journey to the World"


    
 
 
 

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     THE POETRY OF GROOVE
     2009 Piece of Pie Records
     Lisa leaps into a new flight path:
     an entire set of her playful, poetic rap and sultry choruses
     over jazzy hip-hop grooves (with a taste of electronica and world flavors)
 

• 5 tracks of new material in various mixes


• 5 tracks of remixed/remastered spoken-word groove tunes from her past 3 CDs 

                    TRACK LIST (click on retailer links for brief samples of all)
                    1. The Poetry of Groove (jazzy chill mix)  
                    2. Be Electric (electronica remix)   
                    3. Get the Signal  
                    4. Turning It Around (remix) 
                    5. Trane's Ride (Naima) (remastered) 
                    6. Virtual Kiss (remix)  
                    7. Night and Day / The Cat Goddess (remastered)
                    8. The Poetry of Groove (house mix) 
                    9. Get the Signal (semi-instrumental mix)
                   10.The Poetry of Groove (edit of Jazzy chill mix) 


      Buy via
      1. Itunes
      2. Amazon including individual MP3 tracks, CLICK HERE 
      (Please buy new from Amazon; others are reselling promos and we receive no proceeds.)
      3. CDBaby 
 

  

 
       or
      4. PayPal using "Add to Cart" (no signups needed)
       ONLY $10.99 + S&H for audio disk directly from Lisa B/Piece of Pie Records

 

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       WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?
       2006 Piece of Pie Records
         Personnel
         Frank Martin and Ben Flint - keyboards
         Chris Amberger, Troy Lampkins, and John Shifflett - electric and acoustic basses
         Paul van Wageningen and Alan Hall - drums
         Danny Caron - guitar
         John Santos - percussion
         Lisa B - Producer
         James (Jim) Gardiner and Scott R. Looney - engineers
         Pajama Studios - recording, Oakland, California
         George Horn - mastering, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley
 
                    TRACK LIST (click on retailer links for brief samples of all)
                    1. What's New, Pussycat? 
                    2. Slay Me (My Young Cat) 
                    3. Cha Cha de la Gata
                    4. Our House 
                    5. Night and Day / The Cat Goddess
                    6. Crazy Cat
                    7. You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to
                    8. The Home Inside
                    9. Warrior Cat
                   10.When Malika Sleeps
 

 

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        CENTER OF THE RHYME
        2003 Piece of Pie Records
        Personnel 
          Frank Martin - keyboard
          Jim (James) Gardiner – keyboard and miscellaneous instruments
          Mimi Fox - acoustic and electric guitar
          Dave Yamasaki - acoustic and electric guitar 
          Bill Douglass and Chris Amberger - bass
          Paul van Wageningen - drums 
          Michael Spiro - miscellaneous percussion
          Tod Dickow - tenor sax
          Daria - background vocals
          Jim (James) Gardiner - producer, engineer
          Pajama Studios - recording, Oakland, California
          George Horn - mastering, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley
  
                 TRACK LIST (click on retailer links for brief samples of all)
                     1. Joe Williams Died Walking/Every Day I Have the Blues 
                     2. Be Electric
                     3. Keeps Me Up All Night
                     4. What You Won't Do for Love
                     5. Captured by Time - The New War
                     6. A Place We Knew
                     7. Center of the Rhyme
                     8. Slow
                     9. Let Me Know It's You
                    10.The Bluejay Glide  
 
      Buy via

 

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        FREE ME FOR THE JOY
        1999 Piece of Pie Records
        Personnel
          Bob Mocarsky – keyboard
          Jim (James) Gardiner – keyboard and miscellaneous instruments
          Dave Yamasaki – guitar
          Curtis Ohlson and Frank Thibeaux – bass
          Marcos R. Biddle – drums
          John Santos – percussion
          Sandy Cressman, Nikita Germaine, Sandy Griffith, Alice Peacock - background vocals
          Rock Hendricks – tenor sax
          Jim (James) Gardiner, Touch-Tone Productions  – producer, engineer
          Dale Everingham, Vincent Wojno, Jim Gardiner – mix engineers
          Pajama Studios - recording, Oakland, California 
          Paul Stubblebine – mastering, Hyde Street Studio D, San Francisco
 
                    TRACK LIST (click on retailer links for brief samples of all)
                    1. I Remember Paradise
                    2. Summertime Song
                    3. You're Not A Girl Anymore
                    4. God of Your Heart
                    5. Whoever Loves Is Afraid
                    6. Free Me for the Joy
                    7. Turning It Around
                    8. Virtual Kiss
                    9. Trane's Ride
                   10. God No. 2 
 
      Buy via
      1. Itunes
      2. Amazon including individual MP3 tracks, CLICK HERE 
            (Please buy new from Amazon; others are reselling promos and we receive no proceeds.)




 

 

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      THE TRANSPARENT BODY
      1989
      (poetry, Wesleyan University Press)
      hardback (email if you prefer paperback), 64 pp.
 
     
 Frances Mayes: “…Whatever she knows or sings comes, in Whitman’s term, from the body electric. 
 
 Daniel Halpern: “Here’s a poetry set out in physical terms—often ruthlessly so. Tied to the things of this world as they are, Ms. Bernstein's poems would have pleased William Carlos Williams—there are plenty of things whose volume contains ideas.  There’s hardly a missed opportunity to approach the objects of her world with open hands, to employ details of sensuality to invoke what surrounds her. Here’s a book that wants to touch you.”
 
 Booklist: “…it is her gift that she manages, through the extreme clarity of her images, always to engage us…A good selection for women’s literature collections.”
 
 
 
 
           The Woman Between Us
           1.
           She waits, taut as a net,
           for me to fall from him,
           a torn sail. As if spread on the water,
           blanking out, I glimpse
           my long brown hair sweeping his shoulder
           and dizzy with sunlight
           I'm washed back to his shore.
           He doesn't see her shape appearing,
           a paper lantern outlined
           by twine, the curve of her breasts
           precise as ink, the down of her belly
           brushstrokes of a name.
           He reaches for me but her
           milky buttocks slope between us,
           her body a flicker of lace
           flattening as our hips meet
           and unfurling as we slip apart.
           I cling to his hard, curved chest,
           my fingers caught in his red-gold hair,
           bite his neck and the flesh
           above his ribs. All his weight
           can't erase her sheen
           from my skin. Open-mouthed,
           silent as she is silent,
           inhaling with her, exhaling
           with him, I cry out --
           a white gown unraveling
           around me, her heat. We are alone
           with her absence. He sees me
           transparent, the length of my body
           lit up with loving him and
           trying to keep her in sight.
           He watches me looking
           and doesn't look away.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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     ANOREXIA
     1985
     (fictional poetry, Five Fingers Poetry)
     saddle-stitched chapbook, 27 pp.
 

     
Frances Jaffer: “Brilliantly imagined, painful, intense, often strangely beautiful… evoke[s] the constant hunger, the infuriated will, the unforgiving rage of the adolescent… An intense and absorbing book.”
 

Stan Rice: “…Its themes of domination, withdrawal, gorging, and the various forms of craving that constitute life make this sequence poem a metaphor for subjects beyond its title. One day is fine; the next we find  ourselves in a state without longing…”    
 
 
 
Kevin Killian: “The eros behind these poems is terrified by a desire for death so strong it would overwhelm the entire being... the most hypersexual book you'll read for many years to come... But I shouldn't lose sight of the narrative here, since it's its most fascinating component. There's a mother and a father and their daughter, who move through different pictures of a crisis... Bernstein's heroine finally breaks the shackles of the taboos that surround her to reinvent herself in a new form.”
 

          My Birthday
 
          Thirteen candles flame
          in my eyes. Streamers
          sway on the walls. Someone
          inhales, the lights blow out, my family
          claps and shouts. The cake
          swells under the knife. I see
          my face in the wide
          silver, sliding in.
 
          My family starts to eat.
          “Dieting,” I say, laying a napkin
          across my empty plate. I run
          to the piano as the dark brown
          bits of icing stick to their lips.
          My hands stretch across the
          chords, minor third, diminished,
          hammering Happy Birthday until it’s all
          eaten, pink roses, chocolate crumbs,
          except the first sliver, too thin
          to spell my whole name,
          just the o.