Whatever one can say about the last theatre season, what seems irrefutable is the general quality of the show albums it has produced. And the quantity, of which the titles represented here are only a partial reckoning.
As might have been expected, the "Titanic" score (RCA 09026-68834-2) is a more emotional experience than in the theatre, since the show, skilled as it is, is such a cool affair. Maury Yeston's music, stunningly orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick, typically hits a lot of styles (typically because Mr. Yeston tends to grandstand in that fashion), but in "Titanic", perhaps more than any other of his recorded works, the mosaic seems held together by more than just an author's imprimatur. As the sensibility moves from grand opera to '20s pop to Romanticism borne of Ravel (among others) to neo-classicism, what seems ever-present is the blueprint for a legit symphonic tone poem--even the ethnic folk motifs seem to be put through this filter. It gives the epic disaster of the story a kind of epic sweep that hasn't been in evidence on Broadway since perhaps "Sweeney Todd"--though where "Sweeney" emphasized thrills, chills, twisted obsession and dark irony, "Titanic" emphasizes unashamed sentiment; ultimately it believes in the nobility of the human spirit. Lyrically it is a little less assured; Mr. Yeston does some very terrific character work, but the prosity of the lyrics (e.g. the fluidity, the illusion of demotic speech) is occasionally compromised by stilted locutions or bewildering misaccents (a list of mankind's great achievements in the opening number includes Stonehenge and the Parthenon, for example). But this is quibbling. Not mere quibbling, perhaps, but a minor issue compared with the real achievement of the score, which is to balance multiple storylines against a vast panorama--and to do it with clarity and a musical versatility and mastery that is often awesome. As well acted as it is written, "Titanic" is this year's easiest bid for best show album Grammy...for those who care about such things...
When the music and lyrics team of John Kander and Fred Ebb couldn't get the rights to "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" they "conspired" with librettist David Thompson to do an original musical in the milieu of 1930s dance marathons, and came up with the perfectly respectable, pleasantly dull "Steel Pier" (RCA 09026-68878-2). The show met with a deserved early demise, owing to a romantic triangle storyline that contained absolutely no suspense, but stripped of the book that so attenuated the proceedings, the CD (RCA 09026-68878-2) is unexpectedly nice. Not great. But quite decent. Produced by Jay David Saks with his usual proficiency and good taste, it showcases the songwriters at their most self-referential--everything they attempt to do here, they've done better elsewhere--and most unmistakable. The lead performances by Gregory Harrison, Karen Ziemba, Daniel McDonald, Debra Monk and Ronn Carroll help keep the marathon on its feet sparklingly, making this not an album you'll listen to often...but one that you'll enjoy more than you expect to each time you pull the jewel box off the rack.
Kander and Ebb are also represented by the recording of the revival of "Chicago" (RCA 09026-68727-2). A full 20 minutes longer than the original cast 1974 Arista release (which resurfaced, digitally remastered for CDs, on the Bay Cities label in 1990, and has recently been reissued afresh by Arista--presumably also in the remastered version), the revival is, unusually, about on a par with its predecessor. Primarily this is because director Walter Bobbie kept his mitts off the show in any way that was distractingly visible or self-consciously revisionist. The similarity of spirit to the Bob Fosse production translates very well to the recording, whose tracks feature full versions of songs that were abbreviated for vinyl, including extra musical material and/or internal dialogue. A cynical vaudeville about the justice system, "Chicago" also benefits from colorful performances by James Naughton, Joel Grey and Marcia Lewis, among others, and a genuine powerhouse performance by Bebe Neuwirth. As for Ann Reinking in the lead: a few of the odd vocal tics she adopted for the role are in evidence, but if you didn't see the strangely mannered performance she gave, they might not be quite so evocative of a bad choice as you listen. And the vocal problems she was having onstage are evident. I have no idea in what sequence the numbers were recorded, but she seems to become vocally tired as the album progresses--and there are several tracks in which, subtly but palpably, you can hear her straining not to lose pitch or duration on the higher notes of her sadly shrinking tessitura. The good news is, she tends to win the battle more often than not, and she never loses the spirit of her character. Helped by some creative mixing on the part of producer Jay David Saks, she never crosses that line into "painful"...but she teeters on the brink, here and there. Probably more so the more carefully you listen. Another advantage the revival album has over the original is that the Phil Ramone-produced 1974 cast album is a raucous, vulgar mix, the sound flat and noisy and a little too wet with reverb. Certainly there is vulgarity to spare in the show, but it's a quality that speaks for itself, without need of overt electronic enhancement. The new "Chicago" is a gentler affair. Losing nothing in intensity or bite, it has a softer sound, and more pastel shadings. No mistake, the original has those thrilling performances by Chita, Gwen, Jerry Orbach, Barney Martin the late Mary McCarthy and the crisp musical direction of the late Stanley Lebowsky--which cannot be undervalued. But the new CD is a smoother listen.
Vulgarity of a different stripe runs through "The Life" (Sony SK 63312) about prostitutes and hustlers in the Times Square of the early '80s, with its glib, facile, frequently silly lyrics by Ira Gasman and retro-hip music by Cy Coleman. Produced by the composer and Mike Berniker, the album has a hot, jazz sound and, whether you like the show (and its sexual politics) or not, it makes an eloquent case for the show's energy and passion. The stage performances of the cast are evoked with laser-bright accuracy and the CD rises above the show's celebration of sleaze to be a more gratifying celebration of Cy Coleman's muscular hard-drivin' jazz. It's what he has always done best, and the show's milieu seems to feed him an almost frightening inspiration...
Jazz from a previous era can be found in the album of the flop "Play On!" (Varese Sarabande vSD-5837) which attempted to re-interpret Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" as a fable set in 1940s Harlem, with re-interpreted Duke Ellington standards standing in for original book songs. The album reflects the Cheryl West script's weaknesses, by trying to recreate the dramatic contexts that didn't work in the first place, via lead-in dialogue to a number of tracks. The story, alas, doesn't speak for itself, so the dialogue seems kinda gimmicky and unnecessary. Taken as jazz on its own terms, "Play On!" has a number of lovely moments and inspired performances by a cast of vocalists the Duke would have "loved madly"...but, taken as a theatre album, there's no dramatic thrust propelling you through. This one's a nice novelty...but it doesn't disguise the fact that the show failed for a reason.
Another show that didn't work, for too many reasons to go into here, was Harold Prince's revival of "Candide" (RCA 09026-68835-2), with its unwieldy mix of opera, musical theatre, and TV variety show sensibilities. So the genuine shocker is that, while he didn't create the definitive staging he intended to (that one is still the 1974 "Chelsea" version, also devised by Mr. Prince), the revival has borne what may be the definitive recording of the Leonard Bernstein score. The weaknesses of the production and cast are either minimized or obliterated entirely, and all the strengths magnified. The biggest complaint about the 1974 Chelsea version was that, in Prince's dogged--and correct--insistence that it be done irreverently, the score sustained many cuts and the orchestra was rendered irreverent too; a mini-orchestration for 17 players was conceived by Hershey Kay (who had done the original orchestrations with Bernstein). Certainly the show itself had finally attained its proper absurdist, satiric spirit -- and its subsequent album on Columbia (produced by Thomas Z. Shepard) captured it magnificently. (The Chelsea "Candide" was performed in a little over 90 minutes with no intermission, and the record--way overdue for a CD re-release--contained the entire show, including all of Hugh Wheeler's then-new libretto, on two vinyl platters.) But the true grandeur of the score was lost. Then came the New York City Opera "Opera House" version, in which Prince successfully restored the orchestra and the operatic pretensions, shoehorning in a few extra numbers for the purists, to boot. This version was recorded too, on New World Records (still available) but not all the opera performers on it are theatre-hip, thus while a good deal of the recording is dandy, some of it seems emotionally stiff, the comedy occasionally labored. (We won't even talk about the recording Bernstein himself conducted on the Deutsche Grammophon label, which eschews many of the Prince innovations and is, frankly, even more unlistenable than his misguided "West Side Story" with Jose Carreras as Tony!) The new "Candide" recording nails the balance. Under Eric Stern's mighty baton, and as produced by Jay David Saks, its music roars and soars--and the vocal performances, both musical and comedic, are the stuff of signatures. The biggest revelation of all--the recording-worthiness of the comic performances by Arte Johnson and Mal Z. Lawrence in multiple small roles. They are surprisingly solid singers too, and it makes an enormous difference to the whole, having such expert "funny" buttressing the glorious voices (Harolyn Blackwell and Jason Daniely among others) and the deft leading character turns (Jim Dale and Andrea Martin). If this album becomes the standard-bearer for future productions it should be, Mr. Prince may have, in an indirect way, given birth to the definitive version he wanted after all.
One of the biggest disappointments of the season before last was the failure of "Floyd Collins" (Nonesuch 79434-2) to make a commercial stand. Partly, the work of its young composer-lyricist Adam Guettel was overshadowed by the fallout from "Rent" whose likewise young composer-lyricist Jonathan Larson had died so tragically. Partly too, though, "Floyd Collins"--about a doomed miner who gets trapped in a cave, causing a media sensation--was a harder sell and more musically ambitious. Blending American folk and country idioms with sounds inspired by modernists like Bartók and Stravinsky, the score was not an easy first-time listen, even for the many ears enthusiastic about it and equipped enough to "get it." There was glorious music galore, but nowhere in evidence a high profile easy-listenin' tune that made friends with you--nor even a learning curve to introduce the vocabulary in graduated doses to ears trying to navigate its terrain. The score took no prisoners and had no patience for you if you couldn't keep up. But if you could, it was electrifying. The good news is that the album of the show, handsomely packaged by Nonesuch, and smartly produced by Tommy Krasker, hits the mother lode in preserving the performances and the ambiance. The bad news: Geuttel's lyrics (sometimes supplemented with "additional"s by his librettist-director Tina Landau), tended to sprawl. Not so bad in the theatre where the dramatic context was always visibly present. On the album, though, there are no visual or dramatic cues to supplement the sprawl, so the story is not quite as clear as a fan of the show (which I was, and remain) would have hoped or liked. Of course there are the liner notes to fill in the blanks, there always are. But the quality of experiencing the show reduced to its essences is one of the hallmarks of great cast album making. And somehow "Floyd Collins" misses by a few strokes. Nonetheless, it remains a helluva good album, and Guettel a force to be reckoned with and listened to.
Also due for a reckoning (that word again) is Jason Robert Brown, whose revue "Songs for a New World" (RCA 09026-68631-2) opened and closed at the WPA Theatre two seasons ago after mixed reviews. He is still a very young man (not yet thirty) and there is something--for lack of a better word--precocious about the songs at times: you sometimes get the feeling that you're hearing pronouncements made about life by a fellow who hasn't lived enough of one to be so damn judgmental yet. In that sense, he's the musical answer to Jon Robin Baitz. On the other hand, the level of both verbal and musical sophistication is so refined that it's almost intimidating in one so young, and I think that has more to do with the mixed reviews than the quality of the work itself, which is generally high and at times genuinely innovative. Many will, because of his particular style, see him as a logical extension of the Sondheim influence (though without the stigma of mindless emulation usually associated with that double-edged observation). Personally, though, I think, in a very subtle way, he's really the successor to Cy Coleman. Not because he seems terribly influenced by Coleman, but because like Coleman, his heart seems rooted in jazz. And where Coleman's imprimatur marks him as a master of big band vocabulary, Brown creates intricate and spectacular fusions of musical theatre diction with progressive jazz and progressive rock: there is as much Steely Dan in him as Stephen Sondheim, and that gives him an unusual freshness of sound and distinctiveness of voice--again, in one so young. His ensemble of players includes Brooks Ashmanskas, Andrea Burns, the indispensable Jessica Molaskey and Ty Taylor. The album, produced by Jeffrey Lesser, is clearly a labor of love, and Mr. Brown will clearly be around for a long time.
On a much more conventional note--sort of--the gay revue "Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly" is a good deal of fun. It's rare that revues of this type are graced with high craftsmanship, but in the very funny lyrics and sketches of Mark Waldrop it has that to spare. It has that in the music of Dick Gallagher too, though it is far too pastiche-y to be perceived as more than craftsmanlike...but it is attractive and gets the job done. (Those of you outside New York who may now be asking who the hell Howard Crabtree is--he was the costume designer, whose stock in trade was outrageous comic extravagance. This, and the revue "Whoop-de-do" were conceived around his ideas. He died of AIDS shortly before "Pigs" opened, but just after having completed his work on it.) The goofy spirit of the show, and its "out there" premise are preserved in all their gay-pride and glory, the dick jokes are at a blessed minimum, and sharp social commentary--delivered by a likewise sharp cast--usually prevails.
Straights have their own interests looked after in the, yeah, yeah, dating and relationships revue "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" (Varese Sarabande VSD-5771) which isn't quite so impressive, but, the album, like the show, does very well in its middle-brow way. It isn't really insightful about the dating/marriage thing; rather, it reinforces the various familiar male and female impressions on either side of the issues. The Jimmy Roberts tunes are pastiche of a somewhat less impressive order than Gallagher's, and the Joe DiPesto sketches and lyrics are of a somewhat lower wit than Waldrop's, but they do precisely the job they're supposed to do for precisely the dating-crowd, touristy audience that wants to see and hear them--and lest that sound like a put-down, I rush to add, Roberts and DiPesto have succeeded where many others have failed, and it seems the height of bad sportsmanship to deny them their moment in the sun. And it has one thing over the topical humor of "Pigs"...twenty years from now, most of its generic observations about dating will still be valid. I'm not sure the album, attractively produced by Bruce Kimmel, can stand too many listenings--there's just not enough substance there to feed the soul or the spirit--but it provokes a number of smiles, even some grudging laughter, and goes down easy on the first go-round, with a cast of four smart performers--Danny Burstein (an early replacement for Jordan Leeds of the original cast), Robert Roznowski, Jennifer Simard and Melissa Weil--who know how to milk it for every last drop it's worth. All in all, such a middle brow revue couldn't ask for a more high gloss presentation.