...Amazing. Strom's ensemble includes the passionate vocal talents of Elizabeth Schwartz... (and) the gut-wrenching passion Schwartz's voice adds to his ensemble.
- Dirty Linen

It doesn't hurt that Strom can tap the soulful vocals of Elizabeth Schwartz. ...brilliant.
- Global Rhythm Magazine

I was captivated by the powerful voice of Elizabeth Schwartz.
- New Age Retailer

The album features the soulful Yiddish vocals of Elizabeth Schwartz.
- The Forward

BORSHT WITH BREAD, BROTHERS
(ARC Music)

"This great gift of music is tied to Jewish folk songs and melded with the rhythms of all the places Jews have lived around the world where they have been touched by the local culture and music. The tunes are infused with a sound that I can only describe as Jewish blues/jazz, Roma (Gypsy) music, and all things Middle Eastern and pentatonic. It takes you on the road of the Jewish Diaspora with music local to each country along the route but unique in its heartfelt similarities and sounds. This is an exciting CD as well as an historic one. It introduces and extends the Klezmer themes and music into a European borsht-like mixture of many musical colors and sounds.

The CD iincludes a mélange of different musicians, starting with Yale Strom on violin and Hot Pstromi members Fred Benedetti on guitar, David Licht on percussion, Jeff Pekarek on bass, Sprocket Royer on bass, Elizabeth Schwartz providing soulful vocals, Tripp Sprague on saxophone, Norbert Stachel on saxophone/multi woodwinds, and Peter Stan on accordion.

The CD roams through 12 songs, each unique and each a musical piece of a musical puzzle that takes you through an exciting journey of Eastern European Jewish dance and folk music. Listening to this music filled me with many emotions, both joyous and sorrowful. This type of emotional reaction is something that seems to have disappeared recently as we listen to the music we are force fed by robotic radio and the odes played on American Idol. This CD touches your soul and your heart and never lets up. Yale Strom has created a CD that makes you want more, so you play it again, over and over, always finding new themes, new rhythms, and emotionally laden vocals with notes that shake your soul.

The CD sings to the six million lost, bringing them back to the rest of us still here who are alive and dancing to Bread with Borsht, Brothers. Indeed, Yale Strom has created a CD for everyone. Its melodies will make you move your feet, shed a tear, laugh out loud, and forever remember the songs of a people who wandered through many lands and mixed in the cultures they absorbed along the way. This is truly world music, culturally created in Eastern Europe, but cross-fertilized with sounds from as far away as Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, brought to life again in those long gone, ghost-inhabited Jewish communities that still exist in our DNA.   

L'Chaim ("to Life!") to a treasury of culture and music that plays out on this wonderful, intelligent CD. "
- Allen Singer, San Diego Troubador, October 2009

"Vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz displays a wonderful appreciation for the nuances inherent in the interpretations of this music. Her mastery of the ornamentations is superb on selections like the movingly ethereal Hungarian Jewish folk song “Szol a Kakas Mar (The Rooster Crows Already)” and an extended version of the Czarist protest song “Vemen Veln Mir Dinen, Brider (Whom Shall We Serve Brothers?). She also gives an inspired performance of “Ver es Keseyder Tseyln (Who Can Count in Order?) that wonderfully portrays both the cantorial and badkhen (wedding jester rhymer) underpinnings to this music".
-All About Jazz, Dec. 2007

"...seriously soulful vocals by Elizabeth Schwartz."
-Spin The Globe World Music News, Nov. 2007

"Intense and riveting CD.  And, of course, another factor at play here is the awesome virtuosity and versatility of the various musicians in Hot Pstromi: guitarist Fred Benedetti; David Licht, a former Klezmatic, on percussion; bassists Jeff Pekarek and Sprocket Royer; reed players Tripp Sprague and Norbert Stachel; accordionist Peter Stan; and vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz.

Picking favourite tracks from the dozen here is almost impossible, but I’ll call special attention to “Szol A Kakos Mar,” a Hasidic song from Hungary sung in Hungarian and Hebrew, with a vocal performance from Schwartz and perfect accompaniment from the band, that almost reminds me of Edith Piaf at her best. Another that must be singled out is “Vemen Veln Mir Dinen, Brider,” a Yiddish protest song that laments being forced to serve in the czar’s army.

This is a very special Klezmer album."
-Sing Out! Magazine

Garden of Yidn
(Naxos World)

The revelation of the album is vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz. Heard here on recording for the first time, Schwartz boasts a deep, dark, rich vocal instrument, with enough versatility to pull off an Arabic taksim, a cantorial wedding blessing, and a jazz waltz version of “Moscow Nights.” For the final number, a Gypsy-influenced doina, Schwartz reclaims the free-metered, improvisational lament for the singer, in whom its origin lies. Schwartz channels her wide-ranging background in musical theater, blues, rock and jazz into a vivid, contemporary Yiddish idiom that needs no translation.
- Sing Out! Magazine
Winter 2002 Vol. 45 #4

I've never heard A Finf un Tzvantziker sound more like a strutting Czarist march; Papirossen more like a cabaret plea for the reality of the street; and the Sheva B'Rachot more ethereal and actually timeless. Even the unklezmatic Moscow Nights has the silk of early ‘60's jazz. Here is a plate for everything. Elizabeth Schwartz's Yiddish is just right.
-Folk Roots Magazine

  Four Stars.
- Applaus Magazine

The Rough Guide is a collection of 18 klezmer tunes performed by some of the most important names in modern klezmer music. Although klezmer music has been around since the 15th century or so, the 1980s saw a renaissance, a revival of interest in this ancient Jewish folk music. Andy Statman, The Klezmer Conservatory Band, Kapelye, and Klezmorim were at the forefront of a rebirth and re-invigoration of this joyous genre.  Building on what these revival groups began, new groups, also represented in this compilation, sought to seize upon true klezmer tradition by importing the flavors of modern American music, including jazz, rock, and bluegrass... It was refreshing to see a compilation that did not include only the "usual suspects" — the standards. The album's selections are slightly more obscure, including several that I have never before heard performed. They were brought to life by klezmer luminaries such as the clarinet virtuoso Giora Feidman ("Dancing with the Rabbi") and The Klezmer Conservatory Band (one of my favorite klezmer ensembles). I enjoyed the smoky, very jazzy, vocals of "Café Jew Zoo" performed by Yale Strom with Hot Pstromi and Klazzj. "Ode to Favourtism and Corruption" by the UK-based Merlin Shepherd Kapelye is a classical-influenced ditty, that was an amusing finale to the CD.

-Blog Critics Magazine