Here's To Life

Track Listings

1. I Just Found Out About Love

2. Don't Quit Now

3. It's Magic

4. Here's To Life

5. Close Your Eyes

6. Bye Bye Blackbird

7. The Nearness of You

8. The Shining Sea

9. As Long As I Live

10. With A Song In My Heart

11. Bourbon Rain

12. Let's Do It

Editorial Reviews
Harvey Siders, LA Daily News
"Lainie has an unerring ear for melodic invention, and an instinctive feel for time...And her intonation is ‘right on.’"

About the Artist
Probably the only talented young person in history who left New York City and "went to L.A. to become a jazz singer," Lainie Cooke made her first and most lasting impression in the City of the Angels as far back as the ‘80s. But home was and is Manhattan.

The petite and powerful songbird has long been appreciated by fans in both showbiz towns. A group of regulars has turned out religiously for every live performance over the past 20-some years, and they have grown into more than fans. Those who aren’t family have become friends.

Now, with the release of her first-ever recording, the heretofore exclusive and savvy membership of the "We’ve actually heard Lainie Cooke" Club is about to explode. And, in the liner notes of "Here’s to Life" on Harlemwood Records, Lainie turns the tables on that loyal following of family and friends by dedicating the music to them. No trumped-up advance reviews. No rave testimonials. Just Lainie, speaking from the heart.

Singing from the heart is a given, as the exquisite presentation of 12 tasteful selections bears out.

And Here’s to Life, is not a chance choice as the CD’s title. It’s a song for all times, and one she’s been singing and living since the smallest (but not the youngest) of four sisters born in Minneapolis discovered her voice at a very young age, singing on the radio at age six and with a big band at 14.

When she moved to New York to take on the Broadway stage (like everyone else), her successes came instead from commercials as she became a popular voice-over artist. A theater arts major at the University of Minnesota, she had studied voice, piano, theory, etc., but it was her dramatic chops that rose to the surface before the musical chops could make their impact felt. And by the time the impulse to sing jazz, standards, cabaret and "just good songs" took over, Lainie was making a living in the Big Apple, speaking and singing off-camera, not on stage, for Jean Nate, Asti Spumante, Ford, McDonald’s, and more.

Determined not to rest on her commercial laurels, "California, Here I Come" became her theme song, and a temporary, intensely concentrated move to L.A., where she duplicated her New York presence on the stages of clubs and cabarets, was the start of the double life of Lainie Cooke. The back and forth journeys sort of backfired. While maintaining the bread and butter voiceover work, recording as an artist was always just around the corner, if one could only stand still long enough to make it happen. So, it took a little longer, and now, it finally has.

Here's To Life,Lainie Cooke,Harlemwood,Jazz singer in the classic mode -luscious, soulful, sophisticated optimism with great taste, intonation, and style.

Jazz Music: Here's To Life

Jazz Music: