In a return to the days of big band crooners like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, The Great American Songbook is the 2022 album by Philly-based singer / saxophonist Erich Cawalla. In addition to reworkings of jazz-pop songbook standards like “Stella By Starlight” (written in 1956, here featuring Randy Brecker on trumpet), “When Sonny Gets Blue” (1956) and the CD-opening “Have You Met Miss Jones” (from 1937), Erich’s album also includes several modern day, soulful R&B covers, including the Smokey Robinson & the Miracles classic from 1965, “Ooo Baby Baby”. There’s even a jazzed-out cover of the Frank Sinatra 1966 classic “That’s Life” while Cawalla’s original “Life’s About Forgiving” keeps pace with the classics.

Cawalla’s vocal skills are complemented by his classy sax soloing and many of the tracks feature a big band style of jazz with added strings insuring the sound is always full-bodied and swinging. With so many musicians playing on these tracks, the album really does hark back to the 1950s and 1960s in sound and the arrangements by the late David DePalma are totally on target. With 11-tracks clocking in at 50 minutes, The Great American Songbook is well-produced by Erich Cawalla and one of his mentors, Bennie Sims, who also adds in his fine bass work. Seven years in the making, the CD packaging is exceptional and with the addition of in-depth liner notes, Erich Cawalla’s 2022 album, The Great American Songbook comes across like a history lesson of classic American music.