REVIEW: What a delight it is to put a CD playing and feel transported to a magic world of song and dance. That’s what happens to me each time I play this cast recording.

At first I thought this stage adaptation of the classic movie would sound much like the original soundtrack, imagine my surprise when I realized that this improved on the original. To tell the truth, I think Irving Berlin’s score never sounded so good.

One of the great joys of it is the fact that, besides the classic songs, there’s a couple of lesser known (I think I never heard them before) Berlin tunes and both are delightful; I’m talking about “Love and the Weather” and “Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun”. As for the classics, the terrific cast and the new orchestrations by Larry Blank give them new life and the likes of, among others, “Snow”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”, “Blue Skies” and “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” sound better than ever.

For me the highlight is the contagious “I Love a Piano”. A terrific musical number that will put you tapping wherever you are. I can’t have enough of it! Ah, I almost forgot, there’s also “White Christmas” (not my favorite Christmas song, that honour belongs to “Sleigh Ride”) and its rendition is simply great.

Brian d’Arcy James, in the Bing Crosby role, shows why is one of the best leading actors of his generation and Anastasia Barzee, in the Rosemary Clooney role, is a true revelation. The singing & dancing team of Jeffry Denman and Meredith Patterson is a perfect match and the veteran Karen Morrow gives her all in “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy”.

This is a fantastic cast recording and a must in every musical fan library. Don’t miss it!

REVIEW: I know I’ll be crucified by saying this, but I really think this new cast recording of A CHORUS LINE is better than the original, although (okay, you can kill me now) I still prefer the movie soundtrack.

The new cast may not have such strong voices as the original or the one in the soundtrack, but they are so thrilled by singing the songs that you forget all about it. There’s a sense of excitement in this recording that becomes contagious and it’s easy for you to be emotional involved.

For many of you, the biggest reason to buy this new CD is the fact that this is the most complete recording of the score. The fact that the “montages” are almost all here helps you to feel the show and makes the act of listening to it a theatrical experience.

I’ve to confess that I never forgive this musical for wining the Tony for Best Score in the same year that the superior CHICAGO opened. Nevertheless I always enjoyed the Marvin Hamlisch & Edward Kleban songs and one of them, “One”, is among my favorite show tunes. But there are other great songs here, the moving “Nothing”, the amusing “Dance. Ten; Looks: Three” and the dramatic “At the Ballet”. Here they are all well sung by, respectively, Natalie Cortez, Jessica Lee Goldyn, Deidre Goodwin, Alisan Porter and Mara David.

The biggest surprise is the hilarious “Sing”, perfectly sung by Chryssie Whitehead and Tony Yazbeck. As for Charlotte d’Amboise, her rendition of “The Music and the Mirror” is probably the weakest track of the this new recording.

This may be the CHORUS LINE for the new generation, but I’m sure that like me (the other generation) you’ll be able to find plenty of things to enjoy.

REVIEW: I haven’t seen this show yet, but it seems that the people who did can be separated in two groups, the ones who love it and the ones who think it’s too boring and pretentious. I confess that after listening the cast recording, I’m not very interesting in seeing it.

The story takes place in two distinct periods of time and the creators of the show try (and sometimes succeed) to recreate those times in their songs. Let’s begin with the first act, we are in 1941 and so it’s natural that the songs remind us of the work of Cole Porter, “Peas in a Pod”, and specially Noel Coward, “Body Beautiful Beale” could have been easily written by him. Unfortunately these two songs are almost destroyed, the first one with a terrible beginning and the second one with several lines of dialogue. But there’s more to appreciate here, the melodious love song “Drift Away”, an entertaining “Hominy Grits”, the old fashion “The Five-Fifteen” and, my favorite track, the jazzy “Better Fall Out of Love”, sung beautifully by Sara Gettelfinger and Matt Cavenaugh.

For the second act we’re transported to 1973 and one of its songs has its heart deep into the 70s, I’m talking of “Choose to Be Happy”. It’s in this act that Christine Ebersole really shines, first with the comic number “The Revolutionary Costume for Today” and later with “Another Winter in a Summer Town”, that brings the music of Stephen Sondheim to mind. Mary Louise Wilson gives her all with “Jerry Likes My Corn” and both end the show with a deep felt duet, “”Peas in a Pod” (in reprise).

This is a sad musical about loneliness and lost opportunities and its music reflects it, specially in the end of act one, “Will You”, and with the haunted waltz “Entering Grey Gardens”. It’s possible that this is one of those scores that grow on you after repeating listening, but I won’t be playing it so many times. I think it’s kind of monotonous and some of the talking voices are very irritating, something that get into my nerves. Nevertheless this is an interesting score, with a few good songs and some terrific singing performances.

REVIEW: I believe we all have a “Man in Chair” inside ourselves and, like him, every time we feel blue we play our favorite cast recording. For our pleasure, his favorite show is THE DROWSY CHAPERONE and he is willing to share its delights with us.

It’s been a long time since I felt so excited about a new score, but Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison came up with a truly original 20s musical comedy and the result is a joy to our hears and heart. Many people call it a pastiche score, but for me that doesn’t mean a bad thing, personally I think Broadway needs more scores of this kind.

When I heard the “Overture” for the first time I knew this one was for me. I always had a thing for the 20s musicals and this score bring us back to a happier and simpler time, when a musical was just supposed to be fun and to entertain. On those times no one cared much about messages or pretended they were doing something important, they were just having a good time and, hopefully, so were the audiences.

After playing this CD no one will doubt that the cast is having the time of their lives and everyone sounds just like those 20s stars. From Sutton Foster to the lesser known Jennifer Smith, everyone is giving their best and the result is one of the best new scores in years. Even the CD booklet is a treasure and I don’t doubt everything about this show and cast recording was done with lots of love and respect for those old Broadway classics.

It’s true, this isn’t as good as THE BOY FRIEND (a favorite of mine), but I’m playing it time after time and there’s always something new to discover. The catchiest number is Foster’s terrific “Show Off”, but “Accident Waiting to Happen” is a gorgeous melody, Beth Leavel have a great time with “As We Stumble Along”, Danny Burstein give us the funny “I Am Aldolpho” and the entire cast delivers the contagious “Toledo Surprise”. In fact, every member of the cast as a chance to shine, and shine they do.

There’s also a couple of cut numbers from the show and even these are a joy to hear. I’m glad that it won this year’s Tony for Best Score and I hope there will be more like this one in the near future. So, put all your troubles away and enjoy this delicious traditional Broadway score. A MUST!

REVIEW: Did we need another recording of the Richard Adler & Jerry Ross musical THE PAJAMA GAME? The answer may be no, but after listening this new rendition of the score I’m forced to say yes. In fact it’s a big yes!

Written in 1954, this was always a highly enjoyable score with a couple of classics among its tunes. It was also one of the few stage musicals that didn’t lose much of its score when it was adapted into a movie. When it opened on Broadway it was a huge success and so it’s no surprise that someone would produce a revival of it nowadays.

I haven’t seen the revival, but this cast recording is the best one I heard. The score never sounded better and livelier. It’s funny, contagious and there’s a freshness to the orchestrations that make it sound like something new. I’ve to confess that one of the songs, “Her Is”, has always been part of the score but only now I really notice it, and I loved it. There are also some new songs (cut from the original or written for latter productions) that help to make this recording the definitive one for this score.

Of course the songs just for themselves wouldn’t make this a definitive recording, but with a splendid cast like the one ensembled here there’s no room for mistakes. Harry Connick Jr.’s voice is perfect for the classic ballads and here he surely melts the heart of the hopeless romantics. At his side Kelli O’Hara is a true revelation and together they make magic. The rest of the cast is also perfect, Michael McKean shines with “The Three of Us” (one of the never recorded songs), Megan Lawrence is a riot with “Hernando’s Hideaway” and together with Peter Benson made me took notice of “Her Is”. Joyce Chittick delivers a new exciting “Steam Heat”.

When a new recording of an old show is as good as this one, there’s no doubt we need a new cast album of the score.

There’s only a negative issue regarding it. To be able to buy it, we are forced to buy HARRY ON BROADWAY ACT 1 that also includes a new recording of Harry Connick Jr.’s THOU SHALT NOT. Although he and Kelli O’Hara know how to sing these songs, the truth is that the jazzier orchestrations sound monotonous and kind of boring. I know that the cast recording of that ill-fated musical isn’t a classic, but it’s much better than this new recording.

REVIEW: Jule Styne is mainly known as the Broadway composer of classics like GYPSY, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and FUNNY GIRL, but he also wrote lots of songs for several movies and was even nominated for several Oscars. Probably his most famous song written in Hollywood is the Oscar winner “Three Coins in the Fountain”.

Well, thanks to Tommy Krasker and the folks at PS Classics Records, we now have a terrific new CD that pays tribute to Jule Styne and his work in Hollywood. Simply entitled JULE STYNE IN HOLLYWOOD this is an indispensable recording for fans of good music, specially musicals.

A splendid cast was ensembled to give life to more than a dozen songs written by Styne in Hollywood during the 40s and 50s. Among those, there’s an “Academy Awards Medley” by Jason Danieley & Marin Mazzie that includes the already mentioned “Three Coins in the Fountain” and there’s a couple of well know songs, “Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night in the Week)” and “Time After Time”, that sound great in the voices of Norm Lewis and Brent Barrett respectively.

But the most interesting for musical fans is the rarely heard (I confess that I never heard some of them before) songs and here there’s room for some delicious surprises: Audra McDonald gives it all in the funny “10,432 Sheep”, Sutton Foster delivers an exciting “There’s Nothing Rougher Than Love”, Kelli O’Hara sounds perfect in the melodious “Blame My Absent-Minded Heart”, Philip Chaffin has a swing time with “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are” and Klea Blackhurst sounds delightful with “That Ain’t Hay (That’s the USA)”.

There’s more to discover and enjoy in this CD and we shall all be thankful to the guys at PS Classics for releasing it specially for us. Have a great time!

REVIEW: British composer Sandy Wilson wrote one of my all time favorite scores, the delightful THE BOY FRIEND, and I’m always very eager to discover his scores. So when Sepia Records announced that they’ll release Wilson’s THE BUCCANEER I could hardly wait to have it on my hands.

With so much expectation it was easy for me to be a little disappointed and in fact this isn’t in the league of THE BOY FRIEND and its sequel DIVORCE ME, DARLING. Anyway, this musical play about “the invasion from America of the so-called “Horror Comcs” which was threatening to corrupt the British innocent children”, has its moments.

Wilson’s music is always melodious and his lyrics funny and unpretentious; this score is no exception. There are old fashion love songs like “Unromantic Us” and “You’ll Find Out”, comic tunes like “Why Did It Have to Be Spring”, “Good Clean Fun” and the witty “Something’s Missing”. Of course there’s a BOY FRIEND kind of song, “Captain Fairbrother”, and one that could easily fit in his later score for VALMOUTH, “Behind the Times”. As for the cast everyone do their best and sound like they were having fun.

If, like me, you like old fashion songs and you don’t mind the fact that all this sounds to British, I’m sure you’ll have a good time with this score.

One last word, this CD as several bonus tracks where you can find songs from ROMANCE IN CANDLELIGHT and THE LISBON STORY.

REVIEW: When this CD was released earlier this year it didn’t catch my attention. I didn’t know who Fred Barton was and I never heard anything about this show. Imagine my surprise when, by chance, I found it at iTunes.

Although this isn’t a great score, I really enjoy this musical comedy tribute to the 40s movies and the great divas of the genre. Fred Barton wrote the humorous lyrics and the period music and the result is worthy of discovering. Of course there are two major downfalls: there’s a little bit to much synthesisers sounds for my taste and Barton doesn’t have a good singing voice (although it’s much better than mine).

On the plus side Toni DiBuono is a terrific leading lady and her voice is perfect for the role and Barton gave her the best material. From a Judy Garland kind of torch song, “Break My Heart”, to the amusing “I’d Love to Love Someone”. There’s also a forties jazzy song, “I Guess I’ll Have to Go Back to My Man”, a funny bitchy one, “I’m the Queen and You’re Not” and the a terrific show tune that could stop the show, “Party Girl”.

Barton has his best singing moment in the duet “Welcome to the Theatre” and almost delivers the quiet melody “There’s a String Tied to a Good Time”. But I’m sure he had a great time writing the music and lyrics; regarding the last ones, lines like “super diva is cruising the hall” are always able to put a smile on your face.