The award-winning vocalist and actor Jim Caruso discusses A Swinging Birdland Christmas, streaming on Friday, 18 December 2020 at Radio Free Birdland, and the album Christmas Birdland (Club 44 Records, 2019), with Joseph Planta.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

We’ve got the chance to go to New York for a little bit of the holiday season in the Big Apple, next Friday, 18 December 2020 with an exclusive online concert, A Swinging Birdland Christmas, featuring Billy Stritch, Jim Caruso, and Klea Blackhurst. It’s an event that celebrates the 2019 album, Christmas at Birdland that is available now featuring terrific holiday music from Club44 Records. Jim Caruso joins me now to preview the concert on the 18^th that will also feature the legendary Marilyn Maye, Dave Koz, and Luke Hawkins. This would have been the 11^th annual presentation at the legendary Birdland Jazz Club on 44^th Street just off of 8^th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The performances will actually be recorded at Birdland for streaming on next Friday through Radio Free Birdland. Visit www.events.BroadwayWorld.com for tickets, and www.birdlandjazz.com for more information. Jim Caruso is an accomplished performer who as we’ll discuss has performed in some of the best rooms in New York City: Birdland, Bemelmans at the Carlyle Hotel, the Algonquin Hotel, and Arci’s Place. He made his Broadway debut alongside Liza Minnelli in the Tony Award-winning Liza’s At the Palace!, and for seventeen years now has hosted the Monday night show Jim Caruso’s Cast Party, which since the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s taken online to YouTube. Pajama Cast Party features talented performers entertaining audiences at home from their homes. Visit www.jim-caruso.com for more. And the album, Christmas at Birdland is terrific. We taped this interview a couple of weeks ago, just before the Americans celebrated their Thanksgiving. I listened to the album and it got me in the mood for Christmas with terrific songs like “You Meet the Nicest People,” “It Happened in Sun Valley,” “The Christmas Waltz,” “Manhattan in December,” among many others. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Jim Caruso; Mr. Caruso, good morning.

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