A Swell-egant, Elegant Party: Eric Comstock & Barbara Fasano, Hosted & Written By Laurence Maslon (WLIW-FM Radio) at LTV Studios

Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano, whose electrifying combination of warmth, wit, swing, and sensuality have made them the nightclub world's most celebrated team, are every bit as entertaining as they are musically savvy. Their new CD, PAINTING THE TOWN (Human Child Records), featuring tenor saxophone legend Houston Person, won the 2026 Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) Award for Major Recording of the Year. The CD was released to ecstatic reviews: The Syncopated Times’ Brian R. Sheridan hailed it as “captivating … essential listening, a milestone” and Will Friedwald of The New York Sun simply states, “ingenious, swinging and stunning.”The New Yorker praises Comstock's “expert musicianship and joie de vivre in equal measure.” The New York Times calls Fasano "a lyrically sensitive interpreter with a special affinity for Joni Mitchell" and declares, “Mr. Comstock and Ms. Fasano are turning the neighborhood into a hotbed of pleasure … smart, funny, and utterly delightful.” Their fast-paced and swinging concerts of pop, jazz, and the American Songbook have audiences standing and cheering from coast to coast and in Europe. The married musical couple draws from an ever-evolving American Songbook – jazz and pop classics by Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, and Cole Porter to singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Carole King, and Bruce Springsteen, plus surprising gems. The NYC Jazz Record’s Marilyn Lester raves, “great tunes, impeccable musicality, and vocal prowess.” Whether leading a trio or a larger ensemble, Comstock and Fasano make all of it fresh, new, spontaneous, and fun -- and their audiences feel they've been to a terrific party where the music and the stories have been equally great. Comstock and Fasano’s cozy New York apartment is filled with awards for their concerts and recordings. Winners of 9 MAC Awards, 5 New York Bistro Awards and the New York Nightlife Award, they have also received the Donald F. Smith Award from the Mabel Mercer Foundation, acknowledging their "immeasurable contributions to the international world of cabaret and achieving a rank as preeminent jazz stylists." Fasano’s CDs “WRITTEN IN THE STARS” and “BUSY BEING FREE” were both awarded the MAC Award for Recording of the Year. All their recordings are available on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and other streaming platforms.Their performances have taken them from New York’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Neue Galerie Concert Series, and Birdland Jazz Club to Saratoga Jazz Festival, Music Mountain Twilight Jazz, London’s Pizza Express, Italy’s Monteverdi Tuscany (where they will return in June 2026), and nightclubs and music festivals across the country.In the words of revered jazz critic Ira Gitler, they “have it all, and then some … artistic, swinging, and superbly entertaining.” Artist websites: barbarafasano.com / ericcomstock.net

Laurence Maslon is the host and producer of the local radio program, Broadway to Main Street, heard every Sunday afternoon for over fifteen years on the NPR radio station WLIW-FM. The program is winner of the 2019 ASCAP Foundation/Deems Taylor Award for Radio Broadcast. An arts professor at NYU’s Grad Acting Program, he has written fifteen books, including a history of recorded music from Broadway, Broadway to Main Street: How Show Music Enchanted America (Oxford University Press) and two cocktail books—Hitchcocktails, his most recent book, and I’ll Drink to That!: Broadway Cocktails, published by Insight Editions in 2023 (winner, Gold Medal, Independent Book Publishers, 2024). Among the documentaries he has either cowritten or coproduced for PBS are: the Emmy-Award-winning Broadway: The American Musical;, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me; and Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds. He has served on the nominating committee for the Tony Awards from 2007 to 2010 and he has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Opera News, Stagebill, and American Theatre.