Tuesday, August 25, 2015
World Premiere Recording, 1993 (Polydor, 2CDs) Andrew Lloyd Webber heard a semi-operatic, sung-through musical in Billy Wilder’s 1950 melodrama film noir, but he made a mistake in choosing…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:22AMFriday, August 21, 2015
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1990 (TER-JAY) No stars; not recommended. In 1978, a musical titled Platinum had an extremely brief run on Broadway. It starred the stylish Alexis Smith in the ro…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:17PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1983 (B’way Entertainment/Varèse Sarabande) Lavishly produced, beautifully designed, lovingly directed, Sugar Babies was a burlesque show featuring very funny old …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:16PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1972 (United Artists/MGM) Sugar was a shocker, the first indication that the great David Merrick production machine of the 1950s-’60s was breaking down. Gower Champ…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:03PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1961 (Columbia/Fynsworth Alley) A legendary title, if for no other reason than David Merrick’s scandalous marketing of the show: He looked in the phone book, found …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:37PMStudio Cast, 1950 (Decca) Operetta albums from decades ago often sound even more dated than the material itself, with white-bread orchestrations and stilted singing. You’d expect the 1924 …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:11AMStudio Cast, 1991 (Elektra, 2CDs) The “Roxbury Recordings” series of restored Gershwin scores was a mixed bag, but this double CD of Strike Up the Band, recorded here in its unsuccessful…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:53AMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1964 (AEI) For a long time, this was an extremely rare recording, so AEI’s CD release was especially welcome. With music by Richard Chodosh and lyrics by Barry …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:49AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1947 (Columbia/Sony) Composer Kurt Weill and lyricist Langston Hughes set Elmer Rice’s 1929 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene to music as an opera, although …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:40AMThursday, August 20, 2015
Original London Cast, 1961 (Decca/Hallmark) This may not be a great musical, but it has a great score by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. These are inventive, compelling songs. The lyrics…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:19PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1997 (RCA) The idea of a John Kander and Fred Ebb musical set during a 1930s dance marathon sounds like a natural; this milieu would seem to be an ideal backdrop for …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:41PMSelections From 1945 and 1962 Film Soundtracks (Varèse Sarabande) The Rodgers and Hammerstein score for the 1945 film version of State Fair is unlike any of the team’s other efforts in th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:17PMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 1977 (RCA) Few cast recordings are as good as this one, made up of songs written by Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire for about 10 years’ worth of unsuccessfu…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:56AMEthel Merman With Studio Artists, 1939 (Liberty/AEI) The first musical with a score by composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Dorothy Fields, Stars in Your Eyes reunited Ethel Merman and Jimm…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:31AMStudio Cast, 1998 (Original Cast Records) Starmites earned six Tony Award nominations in 1989, at the end of one of the leanest Broadway musical seasons in history. All about a shy teenager …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:07AMOriginal London Cast, 1984 (Really Useful Records, 2CDs) Starlight Express is the most enjoyable show — or, to look at it from another perspective, the least objectionable — that And…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:44AMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 2001 (Triangle Road) About a third of the way through The Spitfire Grill, wherein a troubled young woman wanders into a sad Wisconsin hamlet and instills new hope…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:12AMWednesday, August 19, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1949 (Columbia/Sony) Romantic and durable, this great Rodgers and Hammerstein score ranges from operatic to 1940s swing to quasi-Polynesian to Americana, yet each son…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:11PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1959 (Columbia/Sony) Although excellent, this recording of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic has been so overshadowed by the spectacularly popular film soundtrack a…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:19PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1981 (RCA) Duke Ellington classics were well served in the revue Sophisticated Ladies, which received 10 Tony Award nominations and ran on Broadway for nearly two yea…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:16PMOriginal Cast, 1997 (RCA) Songs for a New World documents composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown’s superb musicianship and his knack for connecting with younger audiences who appreciate cont…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:10AMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast Members, 1992 (DRG) A tongue-in-cheek pastiche of 1940s pop culture, Song of Singapore had a substantial Off-Broadway run at a nightclub venue. It was whipped up b…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:57AMOriginal Broadway Cast Members, 1944 (Decca) “Hurry, Countess! The boys’ names are in the cakes! They’re starting the drawing!” So runs a typical line of dialogue in this peerlessly …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:24AMOriginal London Cast, 1979 (Pye/DRG) The centerpiece of this show, a revue of songs written by a fictional Irish-Jewish composer named Moony Shapiro, is a seven-minute medley of “vocal gem…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:18AMOriginal London Cast, 1982 (Really Useful Records, 2CDs) This two-disc album was recorded live during the show’s opening-night performance, and it has a definite theatrical snap to it. Son…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:49AMMonday, August 17, 2015
Ethel Merman and Original Cast Members, c. 1944 (AEI) Perhaps the definitive wartime musical, Something for the Boys was a hit for Cole Porter and Ethel Merman. It offers an enjoyable score,…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:25PMOriginal London Cast, 1992 (First Night) No stars; not recommended. Twenty years after the musical Sugar played on Broadway, this revised, retitled version showed up in London. Judging from …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:21PMStudio Cast, 1980 (Original Cast Records) Joseph Stein adapted his backstage comedy Enter Laughing, based on a novel by Carl Reiner, into a musical that had a dismal two-week run in 1976 but…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:06PMOriginal San Francisco Cast, 1976 (DRG) If you admire You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown as much as I do, you too may have trouble warming to its sequel, Snoopy!!! While the former captures …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:57PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1995 (Atlantic) Did Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller write every great 1950s-’60s tune? That’s the feeling you get when listening to Smokey Joe’s Cafe, a greatest-…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:46PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 1965 (Capitol/DRG) No stars; not recommended. With a book by Peter Stone, this musical is an adaptation of Elmer Rice’s Dream Girl. The show’s leading role was be…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:37PM 
