Friday, August 28, 2015
Original Cast, 2000 (DRG) It would be a wonderful thing if more full-length musicals could be as melodic and charming as 3hree, the triumvirate of one-act works that director Harold Prince p…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:00PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2001 (Swing Music) In theory, it was an inspired idea to have Harry Connick, Jr. write the score for this Susan Stroman-David Thompson adaptation of Thérèse Raquin,…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:09PM[SHARE]Film Soundtrack, 1967 (Decca/MCA) There's no explanation for this bizarre camp exercise, which was designed to spoof the 1920s. Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore play flappers seeking their…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:49PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1942 (Decca) Shortly after the start of World War II, Irving Berlin created a new version of his World War I revue Yip! Yip! Yaphank. The resulting show, This Is the …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:39PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2004 (DRG) A sort of musical fairy tale for adults, The Thing About Men is based on Doris Dorrie's German film Männer. It shows us what happens when a philanderi…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:06PM[SHARE]Thursday, August 27, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (Casablanca) Neil Simon based his book for They're Playing Our Song on the real-life relationship of the show's composer and lyricist, Marvin Hamlisch and Carole…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:05PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1949 (Decca) Although it is now forgotten, this mild satire on Texas politics ran out the season, and a near-hit song or two came out of its score by composer Robert …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:59PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1960 (Capitol/Angel) It all starts with a marvelous opéra bouffe-style overture that sets the tone perfectly for this tale of the Tenderloin, New York's most notorio…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:40PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1998 (New World, 2CDs) This was one of the Gershwins' middling, mid-1920s musicals, chock-a-block with mistaken identities, society marriages, and principal comics delivering nu…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:15PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1984 (Polygram) Onstage, it was an entertaining, beautifully put together, old-fashioned show, but the cast album of The Tap Dance Kid reveals an uninteresting score.…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:04PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (Painted Smiles) One of the most colorful personalities in show business history, Tallulah Bankhead was so imitable that any impressionist worth his or her s…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:41PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (DRG) This show managed only a brief run " not because there was anything wrong with the writing or the production, but perhaps because the general public di…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:15PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2000 (Original Cast) [user=5] This is a gilt-edged tribute to lyricist John Latouche, who wrote in a number of genres and had only occasional good fortune in any …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:43PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (RCA) Eugene O'Neill's uncharacteristic comedy Ah, Wilderness! seemed a natural candidate for stage musical treatment " even though the MGM musical Summer Holida…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:32PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 2003 (First Night) Who would have imagined Boy George as a theater composer? Yet with this show, partly about George's rise to fame in the London club scene of the earl…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:08PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1966 (Kapp/no CD) For a tantalizing glimpse of the talent and creativity spawned Off-Broadway in happier times, seek out this 1966 hit, a Restoration-style comedy…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 08:50AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Studio Cast, 1997 (Performing Arts Preservation Assn.) When producer William Repicci caught a performance of a work in progress by Linda Thorsen Bond that was being staged in Midland, Texas,…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:58PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1996 (After 9) No stars; not recommended. Subtitled "The Johnny Burke Musical," this show tried to avoid being just another composer tribute revue by placing the song…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:08PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1999 (Sony) No stars; not recommended. On Broadway, this revue's main selling point was Lynne Taylor-Corbett's ultra-strenuous choreography. What's left on disc is a …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:57PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2002 (Sony) With a book by John Guare, this musical based on the dark film Sweet Smell of Success found few fans during its three-month Broadway run, but the cast rec…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:41AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Columbia) This is a practically flawless recording of a Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields score that ranks as one of the best of the 1960s. Bob Fosse's adaptation of th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:44AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (RCA, 2CDs) Every musical theatre fan has a personal favorite Sondheim score, and the man's oeuvre is so rich and diverse that it's impossible to argue what is t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:10AM[SHARE]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 D…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:22AM[SHARE]Friday, 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 04:17PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (B'way Entertainment/Varèse Sarabande) Lavishly produced, beautifully designed, lovingly directed, Sugar Babies was a burlesque show featuring very funny old sk…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:16PM[SHARE]Original 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 Champio…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:03PM[SHARE]Original 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 se…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:37PM[SHARE]Studio 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 wa…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:11AM[SHARE]Studio 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 192…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:53AM[SHARE]Original 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 Al…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:49AM[SHARE]Original 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 th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:40AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
