Sondheim music without lyrics? Two jazz musicians uncover a new sound for Sondheim lovers. DC jazz bassist Tommy Cecil tells of the time a few years ago when he was playing a gig supporting New York pianist Bill Mays. He asked what songs they might play, and for the first time in Cecil’s over thirty […]
American Voices at the Kennedy Center: the Broadway musical
As professionals came together at the John F. Kennedy Center the weekend of November 22nd, across the spectrum of music styles, two ideas came to predominate in the program American Voices.. One was that with singing first comes passion then comes the business. The second, related to the first, is that all artists who want […]
American Voices at the Kennedy Center: Country and Pop
As I observed master class after master class across the spectrum of vocal music that was represented this past weekend in American Voices, I learned that the format is more comfortable for practitioners in some styles (opera and musicals) than others (pop and country.) Sure, the American public gets to sit in front of their […]
Maury Yeston’s ballet, Tom Sawyer
You know the story by Mark Twain. You know a lot of music by Maury Yeston – composer/lyricist of Nine, Titanic, Goya, Death Takes a Holiday, many songs from Grand Hotel and the more-beautiful-than-that-other-guy’s Phantom. Put the two together and you have the new two-disc recording on PS Classics. But it is different than other […]
American Voices at The Kennedy Center: Jazz
Last Friday evening, the premiere jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves ran a Jazz Master Session in the Terrace Theatre at the Kennedy Center. Renée Fleming moderated the event as part of a weekend she had spearheaded called American Voices, a celebration of our many vocal traditions and styles. This was followed up by a panel discussion […]
Giant, Original Cast Recording
Michael John LaChiusa doesn’t write easy musicals. He writes complex, multi-themed and often huge works based on challenging material.
Closer Than Ever – new cast recording
A new CD of a show I’ve loved from its earlier recording raises the question “Do I need another one?” Often, the answer for the normal collector is “No.” (Of course, I’m not your normal collector – I suffer from the symptoms of a condition known as compulsive completism.) But then the follow-up question is: […]
Hands on a Hardbody, Original Broadway Cast Recording
When you say “the recording is better than the show was” sometimes it is a positive comment on the recording and sometimes it is a negative comment on the show. In this case, it is both. The recording captures fine performances by the likes of Keith Carradine, Hunter Foster, Keala Settle, Jim Newman and the […]
ClownAround – Obscure circus musical emerges from the RCA vault
A musical theater collection needn’t – indeed shouldn’t – be confined to those timeless hits familiar to all theater aficionados. There are so many fabulous scores that never became standards but deserve to be explored! Many deserve a spot on your theater shelf because of both music and lyrics, while others limp in with one […]
Kinky Boots – big winner on Tony night?
If you want to prepare for this Sunday night’s Tony Awards telecast on CBS (8pm EST), you might want to get hold of the new original Broadway cast album of the show that has more nominations than any other, Kinky Boots. With 13 nominations, there are likely to be a good many times when the […]
Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, CD release
The series on Tony nominees continues with this look at the recently released Original Broadway Cast recording of the newest revival of Cinderella.
Tony Awards: Matilda: The Musical has 12 nominations
Matilda, the big London hit that has become a big Broadway hit, arrived on these shores with an original cast album already on the market. The Royal Shakespeare Company, which produced the show, issued its original cast recording in 2011 based on the pre-London run in Stratford. Then this year it released it again with […]