Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Studio Cast, 1955 (Columbia/Sony) With a score by George and Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, this 1926 lark is a tuneful jaunt through the then-familiar territory…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:47PMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1972 (Bell/no CD) After appearing in Noël Coward’s last musical, The Girl Who Came to Supper, Roderick Cook compiled a revue of Coward’s songs that was first…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:54PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1958 (Columbia/DRG) For their Broadway songwriting debut, the Hollywood team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans freely adapted/the British film The Captain’s Paradise …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:44PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1969 (Aidart/DRG) No stars; not recommended. Given that numerous scores by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Jerome Kern remain unrecorded, the existence of this alb…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:33PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1981 (Original Cast) It may have been pure folly for Donald Driver and Michael Valenti to invite comparison to The Boys from Syracuse with this modern musical retelli…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:22PMMonday, October 5, 2015
Broadway Cast, 1952 (Capitol/DRG/Angel) The first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize, Of Thee I Sing (1931) is glorious. With music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, and a book by Georg…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:14PMSunday, October 4, 2015
London Concert Cast, 1990 (EMI) Here is a rare find: a lost gem of a musical by Cole Porter that was produced in England but never on Broadway. This star-studded 1990 concert performance of …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:01PMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1993 (DRG) Can anyone blame Iibrettist-composer-lyricist Dan Goggin for not wanting to mess with the formula that made Nunsense such a success? Of course not. Sti…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:51PMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1986 (DRG) This album preserves much of the straightforward charm of the show on which author Dan Goggin would eventually build a worldwide franchise. The story o…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:55AMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1968 (Columbia/DRG) With a book and lyrics by Gretchen Cryer and music by Nancy Ford, Now Is the Time for All Good Men is set in a small town in the Midwest. Its …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:42AMOff-Broadway Cast, 1997 (Varèse Sarabande) Douglas J. Cohen’s chamber musical No Way to Treat a Lady received the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Richard Rodgers Award and two pro…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:45AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1962 (Capitol/DRG/Broadway Angel) Does this sound like a Richard Rodgers musical? A black American fashion model, living in Paris with a rich older lover in attendanc…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:36AMThursday, October 1, 2015
Broadway Cast, 1971 (Columbia/Sony) Pure heaven. This revisal of a nearly forgotten 1925 hit helped kick off the nostalgia craze on Broadway. Burt Shevelove did a good job of adapting Otto H…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:51PMOriginal Cast, 1941 (Pearl/AEI) Marc Blitzstein’s follow-up to The Cradle Will Rock failed to coalesce and ran for only three performances — yet it earned a cast recording, with Blitzste…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:39PMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (Confidential Recording Company/no CD) This is a camp-fest, to say the least: a book musical with the feel of a revue, set in the demimonde of sophisticated …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:26PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1982 (Columbia/Sony) The most original musical of its decade is both a dazzling exercise in style and a heartfelt tale of a middle-aged man’s fear of maturity. Arth…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:39PMStudio Cast, 1998 (Varèse Sarabande) Composer Claibe Richardson, best known for his remarkable score for The Grass Harp, worked unsuccessfully on a musical version of Sweeney Todd for sever…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:24PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1991 (JAY) As conceived by librettist Arthur Laurents, the ambitious Nick and Nora wanted to be a gripping murder mystery, an X-ray of Hollywood hypocrisies, a femini…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:04PMOriginal London Cast, 1929 (Columbia/Pearl) With wonderful music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, this frippery about New Orleans, the French Revolution, and love leveling…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:09PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1957 (RCA) Although rarely revived today, New Girl in Town ran for a respectable 431 performances on Broadway, and this adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christ…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:02PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1968 (Warner Bros./DRG) If you want to know what killed the traditional Broadway revue, this cast album provides two answers: economics and a bankruptcy of imaginatio…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:55AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1956 (RCA/Arkiv) While it didn’t create as big a sensation as New Faces of 1952, this revue boasted another impressive roster of performers. Front and center is T…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:35AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1952 (RCA/Jasmine) Broadway once thrived on clever little revues in which clever young people satirized whatever was topical along the Great White Way and in the news…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:17AMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (RCA) Those who find much of William Finn’s work too abrasive should check out this moving and original musical about serious illness. In collaboration wit…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:10AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1959 (ColumbialDRG) This investigation of beatnik culture ran for only 23 performances, and you’ll know why when you hear the cast album. With a jazz quartet instea…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:59AMOriginal Los Angeles Cast, 1998 (Cafe Pacific) Obviously, the cast album can’t capture the raison d’être of this popular revue. Yet it does help make conceiver-director Robert Schrock�…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:46AMWednesday, September 30, 2015
Studio Cast, 1999 (Nonesuch) Composer-lyricist Adam Guettel’s song cycle Saturn Returns had a brief run at The Public Theater but never got an original cast album. Myths and Hymns comes pr…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:51PMOriginal Cast, 1986 (Polydor/Varèse Sarabande/Verve) Composer-lyricist-Iibrettist Rupert Holmes folded a tribute to the English music hall into his adaptation of Charles Dickens’ unfinish…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:34PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1983 (Atlantic) This “new” musical was written around old George and Ira Gershwin songs. During its troubled pre-Broadway tryout, book writer Peter Stone and the …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:23PMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 2003 (PS Classics) With a book and lyrics by Richard Nelson, who also directed the show, My Life With Albertine has a powerful and distinctive score; composer Ric…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:12PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1992 (RCA) No two Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens scores sound remotely alike. Here, the flavor is bright, clever, and wonderfully varied. In adapting the popular film M…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:00PM 
