Paris

In 1966, 20-year-old Liza Minnelli released as her third solo album the Francophile collection There Is a Time, its title song a cover of Charles Aznavour's "Le Temps" with English lyrics. Six years later, Minnelli recorded her first live album at the Olympia in Paris. So, she had a demonstrated affinity with France and its leading singer long before the two teamed up for a co-headlining season at the Palais des Congres in Paris in the fall of 1991. The resulting two-and-a-half-hour double-CD includes what are essentially full-length live performances by each performer. After some slightly comic business at the top and a couple of duets on Aznavour's "The Sound of Your Name" and "Mon Emouvant Amour," he takes over for the rest of the first disc, singing many of his familiar self-written songs. The two singers do some jazz scatting at the start of the second disc ("Pour Faire une Jam"), and then Minnelli holds the stage alone for 12 numbers that include her greatest hits old and new ("Cabaret," "New York, New York," the Pet Shop Boys' disco arrangement of Stephen Sondheim's "Losing My Mind"), the title song from her then-new movie, Stepping Out, and some special material worked up for the French audience, notably Aznavour's "Sailor Boys" (sung in English) and "J'ai Deux Amours" ("I Have Two Loves," these being "mon pays [my country] and Paris"). Happily, she and Aznavour then team up for a 15-minute, 14-song medley of pop standards, ending, inevitably, with "Le Temps." There's little here one hasn't heard before from Aznavour and Minnelli, so the best moments are the ones when they work together. ~ William Ruhlmann