The Best Things in Life by Kate Michaels

Kate and the Thread bring them all to life.

Taken from Kate’s live show- Swinging the Marilyn Monroe Songbook, “The Best Things in Life” is the second of a two part CD set. The first part, big band CD “Just Marliyn”, is also available on CD Baby.

So what is the Great American Songbook?

Well, it usually is considered an informal term covering the period of American songwriting and popular music between 1930 and 1960. So many artists have recorded parts of the Great American Songbook that the songs themselves form a large part of jazz music today.

“The Best Things in Life” spans this magical era, taking you with the unique Busy Line (from the 30’s) all the way to the end of the Songbook with the classic ballad Moon River.

Popularized in the United States, many of the Songbook composers and songwriters were originally from Europe or first generation Americans. They brought an intense musical tradition which continues to influence our jazz and American culture.

The Red Thread provides an authentic sound experience, a sound file not only into the past, but also a look at the way jazz has evolved in Europe.

Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Bobby Darrin, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, even Barbara Streisand (particularly her early work), Sammy Davis, Jr., Sarah Vaughn, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathius are just some of the greats who have drawn extensively from this amazing font of Americana jazz.

Not only is this music appreciated by an older generation of Americans, contemporary artists have also re-popularized it recently. Well known singers such as Michael Buble, Linda Ronstadt, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Rod Stewart, Queen Latifah and Boz Scaggs have re-recorded these first-class songs which are second to none.

Kate and The Red Thread are in good company!

This recording is an excellent gift! And not only have studies shown this type of music to be a mood elevator but a memory enhancer as well. Finally, because of the generally sophisticated lyrics, this CD is also a great language and culture tool for students learning English.

More information about Kate.

Whether she’s in an intimate nightclub or center stage at a sprawling music festival, Kate Michaels wins over audiences with her unique blend of jazz and romance.

A classically trained vocalist, the American-born artist has a background in opera and musical theater. Her latest venture reaches into the Big Band Era and builds on the glamour of one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, Marilyn Monroe, and the swing music that surrounded her.

More than 30,000 people turned out to see Kate at the Centre Sportif du Bout-du Monde in Geneva where her show included A Fine Romance, Every Baby Needs a Daddy and the Monroe standard Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.

“I like story songs the best, so of course the melodrama of Every Baby Needs a Daddy is great,” she says. “To me it sounds like one of those gumshoe crime novels in music al form. It reminds me of Dick Francis and ‘Dragnet' all at the same time.”

“A lot of life is about romance and love – wanting it, it, needing it, happy that you have it, miserable if you don't,” Kate says. “I like expressing all of these sentiments musically, especially the way that Colin and Stephan have arranged all the music. It's great to sing about love. Marilyn had great arrangers and it was such a pleasure to work with people who understood how to put all this together to make something for the musicians and for me, the singer.”

Kate has also appeared in opera and light-opera including The Merry Widow, The Magic Flute and The Medium. She was in the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of The Phantom of the Opera in Basel, Switzerland and played the title role in Evita in the national Swiss production at Lake Thun in 2003.

She also has given solo performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Zurich and many other cities in Europe. During her stay in Paris this summer, she performed standard favorites at The American Church of Paris.

A native of California's famous Wine Country, she began singing as a child.

“My Grandma and the all women in our family used to sing when we did chores, especially when washing dishes,” Kate remembered. “That's when I first learned about harmony and melody lines.

The stage seemed to come naturally: just like the girl in A Chorus Line, I really did listen to Carousel and dance around the living room with my arms up like this.'”

Her credits include Lily in Carnival, Hunyak in Chicago, Sandy in Grease, Annie in Annie Get your Gun, Luisa in The Fantasticks, Maria in The Sound of Music, Ann in A Little Night Music and Sonia in Godspell, as well as many others. As an actress, she has also performed in Himmerland, A Room With a View, Walking the Dog and Between Mouthfuls.

In addition to performing, Kate is involved in musical direction for theater productions, and has directed such shows as Barnum, Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, Carnival, Oliver and Godspell. She also manages other projects and shows through her own production company, New Arts Paradigm GmbH.

An Irma Cooper Scholarship from the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria first brought her to Europe. From there she landed a role in an opera in Bremen, Germany.

“I knew absolutely no German at the time,” she said in a recent interview. “Even though I am a singer, I was being hired for a speaking role. My host family where I was staying had three children and they all coached me on speaking phonetically from the Children's book, When the Root Children Wake Up. I was very lucky that the show was a comedy. The director laughed so hard when I pronounced the word “Apfel” (apple) with such conviction he hired me on the spot.”

She and her husband divide their time between their homes in Switzerland and Las Vegas.

Kate began developing her Big Band sound in the past few years and like her singing, she traces the roots to her grandmother.

“The big band recordings I heard were fun. I remember when Linda Ronstadt did her recordings with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Lush Life and What's New and my grandma bought the album -- she never did this! We sang along and she said: ‘Listen, that's your music Linda is singing, you should do that too!'”

She says The Best Things in Life and Just Marilyn will be part of a larger musical project exploring the heyday of the big band era.

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