The following review appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on Saturday, May 1, 1999, written by Philip Elwood, Examiner Music Critic:

The San Francisco Starlight Orchestra is a 15-piece organization specializing in late 1920s and early Depression-era popular music. The organizer, musical director and cornetist (one of the two) is Bruce Vermazen, who also was the driving force in the wonderfully authentic Chrysanthemum Ragtime Orchestra a few years back.

There is some overlap between the SFSO and Don McNeely's Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, but not much. McNeely's is a smaller, commercial dance band heavier on jazz. Vermazen's group, which, though it plays for some special events, is far more a repertory group, specializing not only in reviving interest in forgotten sounds and songs but also in creating a musical ambience - a reflective mood that captures the attitudes and feelings of the era.

This is a long piece of music with 24 tunes in an hour and a quarter; magnificently recorded by Mike Cogan of Berkeley's Bay Records.

Among the best known of the personnel are trumpeter and vocalist Bob Schulz, an underrated veteran of Turk Murphy's band of old, the Golden Gate Rhythm Machine and, in the last few years, his own Frisco Jazz Band. On fiddle and vocals are Ray Landsberg and Ed Rosenback; Hugh O'Donnell plays the whole drummer's delight, from the jazz drum kit to xylophone and marimba. Trombonist Gene Isaeff played in the '40s with Henry Busse's orchestra. Busse, for years in the '20s, was the featured sweet trumpet with Paul Whiteman.

John Howard is a frequent clarinet and alto soloist; Janine-Marie sings such numbers as "Shaking the Blues Away," "Do You Believe in Love at Sight?" and "There I Go Dreaming Again."

There a slew of pop tunes, many now forgotten - "Under a Texas Moon," "When You're Counting the Stars Alone," a dozen others - and there are fine jazz numbers played brilliantly. Tunes like Don Redman's "Some Sweet Day," Phil Wall's "Static Strut" ; Bennie Moten's "Rumba Negro" (1929) is here, as is Duke Ellington's "Move Over" and "Misty Mornin'," 1928 numbers that Vermazen arranged.

Other selections - "You're Getting to be a Habit With Me," "Bandanna Babies," "Varsity Drag," "You Took Advantage of Me" and (Looking at the World Through) "Rose Colored Glasses."

This is not cornball, razzmatazz, funny-hat stuff. This CD covers a cross-section of a significant American popular music era. And it's a beauty.