Caught In The Act

Sensational young crooner Michael Buble stars in his first "Great Performances" PBS special this holiday season: that and his August live performance at the Wiltern in Los Angeles will be seen and heard in this CD/DVD package. Now Buble takes yet another giant step in his meteoric career.

In the opening track of this live CD, Michael Bublé explodes "I'm feeeling GOOD!" Who could blame him? He's backed by a big--make that a really big--band, and the song sounds like a million bucks. You may quibble that Bublé is a nice fellow who's a bit lacking in both the charisma and swing departments, but the music here percolates with bouncing energing--just listen to "Summer Wind" or "The More I See You" to see how glorious arrangements (by Johnny Mandel and John Clayton Jr., respectively) can propulse a reasonably gifted but by no means transcendent singer into the stratosphere. Best of all, Bublé once again shows his ability to seamlessly bridge eras and styles by offering stylistically consistent covers of the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" (done swing-style) and Lou Rawls' 1976 hit "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" (done crooner-style in a duet with Italian singer Laura Pausini). (The DVD offers up a similar take on Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," for instance.) The DVD portion of this combo set doubles the ante by offering 18 tracks (plus a bonus "Song for You" with Chris Botti) to the CD's 8. There's also a 20-minute backstage featurette showing what goes into the preparation for the show. --Elisabeth Vincentelli