Recorded live at Birdland in June 2022, Ari’s debut album, featuring Lawrence Yurman on piano. Produced by Ari Axelrod and Randy Hansen, co-produced by Robbie Rozelle. Liner notes by Stephen Mosher.

Liner Notes by Stephen Mosher

I remember the first time I ever saw Ari Axelrod in action. He was playing the conga for Joanne Halev’s musical cabaret “Like a Perfumed Woman” in the Birdland Theater. Even just sitting stage left of Joanne, playing his conga, Ari had a magnetism that was unmistakable. It came from the intense focus he placed on that simple act of striking the head of the instrument, in the act of making the music to which Joanne Halev would tell her story. In that, Ari became a mutual storyteller in someone else’s musical play. So when the time came for me to see an Ari Axelrod show, I expected something worth looking at.

I was not prepared for what I would see at that first Ari Axelrod show, or in any of his shows, since.

Ari is not your average, every day, run-of-the-mill artist. There is an innate quality with which he was born that brings his work to a level beyond that most usually found on the cabaret or concert stage. It is a quality that the great American actor Austin Pendleton has described as “genius” — but when Austin says it about his co-stars and friends Barbara Harris and Jo Van Fleet, he says that it means they had something that nobody else had, and, in that, they were genius. That’s Ari. He has a quality that nobody else has. He is willing, no, he is needing to go further in every story than might seem possible. He is willing, no, he is needing to connect with the composition, the words, the notes, the meaning in ways that have been, previously, unexplored. He is willing, no, he is needing to connect with his audience as though they are in the desert and he is the oasis… or maybe he is in the desert and they are the oasis. The exchange of the energy between Ari and the audience is palpable and it is undefinable. And it is rare. Whether Ari is performing his “Celebration of Jewish Broadway” show, “Ari’s Arias” or anything else — even a drunken karaoke number at a New Year’s Eve party, probably — there will be more layers, more connection, and more humanity than that which seems possible, at least for a mere mortal.

But he is mortal. Ari Axelrod is just a man, he’s just a guy, he’s just a fellow with a desire to tell stories. He just happens to have the talent to back it up… and then some.

But don’t take my word for it. It’s all right here. It’s all on the album. Press play, get swept away, and welcome to Ari’s Universe. You’re going to love it here.

Recording Photos

Michael Hull Photo