A newfound treasure to the traditional Italian music of my youth, this CD was a delightful find. Not only did I find some familiar songs but have been introduced to new selections previously unknown to me. Would be pleased to see more of the renditions with Gus playing the mandolin instead of the violin as I grew up hearing these melodies with mandolin and guitar accompaniment and it has renewed my interest to play the mandolin again. Thank you for preserving these old Italian melodies.
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I first heard this on Hober Internet radio and liked it enough to track it down.  I collect world folk music and this is a little lighter than my usual CD -but it's fun and lively.  I was laying a slate tile floor to it and it helped a lot.
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                                 October 4, 2001

                                 By JOHN BECK
                                 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT 

                                 Cornering the market on Italian and Sicilian instrumental music, The Hot
                                 Frittatas are guaranteed to serve up a heel-kicking, lip-smacking platter of
                                 polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, tarentellas, marches and paso-dobles at this
                                 year's Sonoma County Harvest Fair.

                                 Don't think of one-minute eggs, think of slow-simmering, skirt-flapping
                                 music cooked over a low heat. Locals might recognize mandolinist Gus
                                 Garelick, squeeze-box maestro Dennis Hadley and guitarist Don Coffin,
                                 but once they transform into The Hot Frittatas they become Augostino di
                                 Gorelli on violino e mandolino, Dionysius Hadjidakus on accordeon and
                                 Donello Coffino on chittara.

                                 As their latest album, "Cafe Liscio," boasts, the Santa Rosa trio not only
                                 showcases the Ballo Liscio style of Italian music, but also French cafe,
                                 Russian and East European, and Latin styles. And with a little
                                 encouragement, they've been know to dive into a healthy round of Cajun
                                 hoedown jamming.

                                 A sample of the CD proves the band's old-world range: The song
                                 "Tenebre Infinite" mixes candlelight chianti with Fellini's "La Strada,"
                                 whereas "Paregina Polka" is a Parisian polka the trio picked up from
                                 Berkeley's Ellis Island Old World Folk Band. And "Speranze Perdute"
                                 spins lost hope in the tradition of great operas, condensing nearly a
                                 century's worth of longing into less than four minutes.

                                
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It's fun when Garelick cuts loose on the mandolin.
The selections are a lively mix of cafe tunes, tarantellas,
mazurkas, and, yes, the obligatory "Funiculi Funicula" acting
as the coda.  You can almost smell the cappucino.
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