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Charmaine Chan

Hey Eugene!
Pink Martini
Heinz Records
Pink Martini  are proof that nostalgia sells. But  on their third album, Hey Eugene, the Oregon outfit  don't just take listeners back to gentler times when 12-piece orchestras moved the shoulders of Big Band groovers and jazz lovers.   They offer a musical tour of languages and cultures in a  12-song set, with  China Forbes leading on vocals and pianist and artistic director  Thomas Lauderdale  adding glue.
Listeners are swept off their feet  by the sounds of Latin America, Japan and France. Forbes even tries her hand at Arabic music with the chirpy   Burka Wba'do.
Much of the music will sound familiar: the rhythmically rousing   Tempo Perdido  is a cover of the Carmen Miranda hit, and Tea for Two, which Doris Day reprised in 1950, is originally from the musical comedy   No No Nanette.
Generally, Forbes cannot be faulted. In the light-hearted love song Taya Tan, sung in Japanese, she nails the pronunciation and sentiment. She performs with similar aplomb in   Ojala and  shows flashes of brilliance in the gorgeous 40s-style torch song Everywhere.
But she stumbles over the title track, and here no one else can take the blame: Forbes wrote the music and lyrics to Hey Eugene. Monotonous pop with a cheesy retro hook, it  feels forced.
As Lauderdale  has lamented, there's often a hint of Pollyanna in Pink Martini.  Although the music should brighten the day of listeners  with sunny dispositions, it will probably not bring smiles to the faces of others.



Hey Eugene!