THAT'S AMORE!
An American Italian Songbook
Reviewed by Carol Kaufman Segal
NoHo Arts Center
 

Gilmore Rizzo is very proud to be Italian and even more proud of his Italian ancestry. And to prove it, he has written a wonderful musical revue about growing up with a warm and loving family who were the epitome of American-Italians.

It is packed with so much fun, lots of laughs and wonderful music, sung by Rizzo and backed up by The Three Goombahs; Paul Katz, Tod Macofsky and Perry Gentry. Rizzo has an astonishing voice, whether he is singing a beautiful ballad with amazing feeling, or a rousing tune. And those three backup boys, well, they add to the entertaining style of the music all accompanied by Bryan Miller on keyboard.

In his household, Rizzo says that music was very important, but of course, so was food! (His famous cousins are American-Italian jazz flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione and the late American-Italian singer Bobby Darin.)

Therefore, his show is presented in a series of appetizers, main dishes, and desserts, with some of the most loved and well-knows songs from the past fifty years (all Italian, of course) that were made famous by such singers as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Connie Francis, etc.

He introduces the members of his family by the different foods, and one can't help but feel the warmth that emanated from the family's closeness.

Gilmore Rizzo and The Three Goombahs are performing this delightful musical auto-biography at the NoHo Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., in North Hollywood Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM, Sundays at 3 PM, and will continue through Sunday, October 23, 2011.

For tickets, call (818) 508-7101, ext. 6, or visit www.thenohoartscenter.com.

Highly recommended.

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