A sultry Affair Lisa Wahlandt´s and Mulo Francel´s concert at The Esplanade Dizzy with delight was how singer Lisa Wahlandt and tenor saxophonist Mulo Francel left 1.000 or so Singaporean jazz lovers at The Esplanade over the weekend. Their two-hour eclectic jam session - culminating in two standing ovations and three encores - was ostensibly a tribute to Bossa Nova pioneers Stan Getz and Astrud "The Girl From Ipanema" Gilberto. But the evening was to be much, much more than just a salute to heroes. Hailing mainly from Germany, Wahlandt, Francel and their three-man band proved to be endlessly inventive musicians, surprising the audience at every turn with novelties such as Austrian percussionist Robert Kainar´s polite quacks with a duckbill-like mouth instrument. They even threw in a few songs they had written, notably Wahlandt´s cooing lullaby "You Are A Flower and Francel´s light and whimsical ditty about a prude, titled As Everyone Knows, I´m Old-Fashioned. Their seamless and intuitive music making together created a sound very reminiscent of the British band led by jazz royalty John Dankworth and his wife Cleo Laine. What sets Wahlandt and Francel´s act apart from the all-too-big pool of Captain And Tennille-like duos today, though, is their uncanny knack of blending a God-blessed voice (hers) with the sassy, brassy toots from clarinet and saxophone (his) into lush, sublime harmonies. Poetic sensibilities in near flawless phrasing made anything Wahlandt sang like a soundtrack to a sultry afternoon spent watching boats cruise downriver, with sunlight glittering on the water... ... Singapore should be so lucky if this band returns again and again. (THE STRAITS TIMES: Singapore, April 12, 2004, by Cheong Suk-Wai)

Fans of MIND GAMES will be treated to the silky, sultry vocals of Lisa Wahlandt in a refreshing repertoire of classic & modern numbers from Madonna, Prince, Gloria Gaynor to Peggy Lee, with an unique concoction of jazz and bossa nova that adds a mystical feel to these songs. Lisa willl also perform the timeless Brazilian tunes of Getz, Jobim, Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes & more... backed by her stellar acoustic quartet of Walter Lang (piano) Ruediger Eisenhauer (guitar), Uli Zrenner (bass) and Gerwin Eisenhauer (drums) Evocative, graceful and willfully unpredictable with an engaging stage persona, flavoured by " A God-blessed voice... Singapore should be so lucky if this band returns again & again..." -The Straits Times, Life!

Homesick for being sad Girlish diva Lisa Wahlandt infatuates with brilliant voice and technique ...By way of her very personal stage presence - which changed from tenderness to wildly defiant spoiled-princess attitudes to subtle eroticism - Wahlandt related rather the soulful undertones of Marlene Dietrich´s myth. Vocally and technically she performed with an ease that is hard to achieve... (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, October 25, 2004, by Franziska Günther)

A tear - with no fear Lisa Wahlandt presents her new CD Marlene ...here, the minimalism of professional musicians combined with musical openness - both of which the category "Jazz" stands for, after all - creates an incredibly dense and modern yet pleasantly soothing sound somewhere between chanson and drum 'n´ bass. The central element is always Lisa Wahlandt´s voice: without frills, yet capable of a stimulating snootiness and fragility at the same time. Falling in love again... with Lisa Wahlandt, The Voice. Big label? She earns it... (Jazzzeitung, Germany, February 2004, by Sebastian Klug)

Marlene´s Lounge Pop The new Dietrich comes from Lower Bavaria ...a bass in the background steps downward, softly pulsating in a muffled lounge pop sound. A voice, arching above it, models the melody into filigree sculptures. So - that´s how it sounds if a contemporary singer is Falling in love again... The bodily tingle that usually comes with that feeling: does that change, too, as time goes by? No matter. Let´s simply take it, from singer Lisa Wahlandt. She dedicated all of her new CD to the repertoire of the late great Marlene Dietrich (Marlene, GLM 108-2). After, for example, her Bossa Nova albums and the enchantingly beautiful, finely interpreted lullaby CD Gute Nacht Lieder her new work presents yet another facet of this flexible, much-in-demand-for-sessions voice. She whispers, she luxuriates in jaunty swing, she meaningfully leaves a note suspended up in the air: Lisa Wahlandt is exactly the right type of singer to balance between subtle interpretation of text and free floating sound. Absolutely captivating how she lets tones melt and wither... By the way, she now teaches Jazz singing at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich... (Abendzeitung, Munich, December 11, 2003, by Roland Spiegel)

A touching surprise Merry-go-round of styles: Lisa Wahlandt and Walter Lang ...starting with the basics: Wahlandt owns a voice both beautiful and enormously versatile which is suited to Blues and Swing as well as to Latin or Avantguarde music; behind her rather high vocal pitch hides unexpected volume; her intonation is as flawless as her microphone handling and her sense of timing; she masters scatting as well as speech-song or cocktail jazz; her Portuguese sounds as perfect as her English, French and German. Last not least - this cool Bavarian blonde has charisma... (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, September 30, 2003, by Oliver Hochkeppel)