Broadway cd in Original Cast Music

"Jersey Boys" (11/01/2005) Pop Vocal Original Cast, Rhino Records (USA)Composers: Denny Randell; Dorothy Fields; Doug Flett; Peggy Farina; Robert Feldman; Raymond Bloodworth; Gaynel Hodge; Gerald Goldstein; Guy Fletcher ; Thomas Austin; L. Russell Brown; Billy Dalton; Abel Baer; Jimmy McHugh; Judy Parker; Kenny Nolan; L. Wolfe Gilbert; Maurice Williams; Otis Blackwell; Sandy Linzer; Stan Rhodes; Barbara Belle; Bob Crewe. Lyricist: Bob Crewe. Original Broadway Cast: The Four Seasons, Daniel Reichard, John Lloyd Young (vocals); Steve Snyder (synthesizer); Ken Dow (bass guitar); Kevin Dow (drums); Christian Hoff, Ron Melrose, Bill Hayes, Randy Andos, Larry Saltzman, Ben Kono, J. Robert Spencer. Personnel: Christian Hoff, Donnie Kehr, Daniel Reichard, Tituss Burgess, John Lloyd Young , Sarah Schmidt, J. Robert Spencer (vocals); Larry Saltzman (guitar); Joe Payne (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar); Louise Owen, Shinwon Kim, Robin Zeh, Cenovia Cummins, Belinda Whitney (violin); Debra Shufelt, Maxine Roach (viola); Anik Oulianine, Stephanie Cummins (cello); Matt Hong, Ben Kono (reeds); Dave Spier (trumpet, flugelhorn); Bob Milikan (trumpet); Randy Andos (trombone); Ron Melrose (piano, synthesizer); Steve Orich (keyboards); Ken Dow (electric bass); Bill Hayes (percussion). Audio Mixers: Pete Karam; Jason Stasium. Recording information: Right Track Recording Studios, New York, NY. Actors: J. Robert Spencer; John Lloyd Young ; Mark Lotito. Photographer: Joan Marcus. Broadway musical JERSEY BOYS brings to the stage the story of 1960s singing sensations Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, recounting their rise from working-class kids to pop-music superstars. The soundtrack, naturally, is filled with Four Seasons hits, including timeless classics like "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," and "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)." Interspersed between the songs are snippets of dialogue from the play, and the actors playing the Four Seasons nail the group's famous vocal harmonies impressively. JERSEY BOYS is a fun listen for those looking to take a walk down memory lane for historical curiosity or even just nostalgia's sake.

"Little Women [Original Broadway Cast]" (05/03/2005) Pop Vocal Original Cast, GhostlightComposer: Jason Howland. Lyricist: Mindi Dickstein. Original Cast Recording/Sutton Foster: Sutton Foster; Danny Gurwin, Janet Carroll, Maureen McGovern, Amy McAlexander, Megan McGinnis, Jenny Powers, John Hickok. Personnel: Karl Kawahara, Sylvia Davanzo, Eric Degioia, Mary Whitaker, Martin Agee, Sean Carney (violin); David Blinn, Liuh-Wen Ting (viola); Lawrence Feldman (flute, alto flute, piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet); Lynne Cohen (oboe, English horn); Tony Kadleck (trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn); Russ Rizner-French (French horn); Mark Lusk (tenor trombone, bass trombone, euphonium); Rob Meffe (piano); Jim Saporito (percussion); Peter Hylenski (sound effects). Audio Mixer: Joel Moss . Liner Note Author: Allan Knee. Recording information: Avatar Studios, New York, NY (02/03/2005/02/28/2005); The Hit Factory, New York, NY (02/03/2005/02/28/2005). Photographers: Paul Kolnik; Joan Marcus. Louisa May Alcott's perennially popular 1869 novel Little Women, recounting the domestic adventures of the four March sisters (particularly the literarily minded middle sister, Jo) in the Civil War era in Concord, MA, has proven perennially popular as a subject of adaptation into other media, especially since the book fell out of copyright. There was the classic 1933 film starring Katharine Hepburn; a 1949 movie with June Allyson; a 1958 TV musical with songs by Richard Adler; a 1978 TV movie; and a well-received 1994 screen version featuring Winona Ryder. And, starting on January 23, 2005, there was a Broadway musical (no relation to the Adler work), with songs by composer Jason Howland and lyricist Mindi Dickstein, starring Sutton Foster (fresh from her Tony-winning performance in Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Jo, with cabaret singer Maureen McGovern as Marmee, the mother of the brood. The show made a modest appearance on Broadway, which had in recent years seen a plethora of musical adaptations of public-domain novels. Neither particularly liked nor disliked by critics, it nevertheless settled in for an extended run, and while the cast album, recorded the month after the opening, seems to have had a little trouble finding a home, such that it did not appear in record stores until May 2005 through the auspices of theater specialist Ghostlight Records, the show was still running at that point. (After the Tony Award nominations virtually ignored it, only giving a nod to Foster, it closed on May 22 after 137 performances.) On disc, the reasons for both the theater community's indifference and the public's acceptance are suggested. Certainly, this is not a remarkable score; serviceable would be a better word to describe it. The lyrics have none of the wit that critics revel in when it comes from the pen of Stephen Sondheim, and the music is neither traditional Broadway show music nor entirely in the camp of the sub-operatic style of Andrew Lloyd Webber, though it suggests both at times. But then, Little Women is not the sort of material that would be likely to attract either Sondheim or Lloyd Webber. As the show goes on, it becomes apparent that Dickstein is aiming at a simple, plainspoken language that matches the tone of the book, while Howland, though capable of dramatic passages (particularly employed comically in "An Operatic Tragedy," as Jo recounts one of her overwritten early stories to a friend at the outset), also wants to match his music to the understated particulars of the story. The score is conventional and workmanlike: it gives co-star McGovern two showcases ("Here Alone" and "Days of Plenty") and provides Foster with a typical Broadway "I am" song ("Astonishing"). Indeed, it provides her with much more; this is nothing less than a star vehicle, and Foster, who may be to Broadway what Sandra Bullock was to Hollywood in the early 2000s, a rough-and-ready heroine who can handle a kiss or a pratfall with equal aplomb, is up to that challenge. Slow to get going, Little Women makes its points about family commitment and social responsibility movingly by its end, and it's no surprise that audiences respond to that kind of sincerity

"The Light in the Piazza" (05/24/2005) Soundtracks Original Cast, Nonesuch Records (USA)Composer/Lyricist: Adam Guettel. Original Broadway Cast: Patti Cohenour, Victoria Clark, Kelli O'Hara, Matthew Morrison, Mark Harelik, Michael Berresse, Sarah Uriarte Berry, Beau Gravitte, Felicity LaFortune, Joseph Siravo. Going into the family business was not what the grandson of songwriting icon Richard Rodgers originally had in mind, but composer/lyricist Adam Guettel rose to the occasion while grabbing the ring at his own steady pace. His musical THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA tells the touching love story of an American tourist and an Italian countryman in post-WWII Firenze. Guettel's unabashed romanticism includes soaring, long-lined melodies, rich and deep harmonic language not far from the land of Sondheim, and lush orchestrations. The refreshing, wide-eyed naivete felt by the young Clara is aptly translated in her solo "The Beauty Is," while Fabrizio's charming awkwardness with English (and with courting a beautiful stranger) is winningly expressed in their duet "Passeggiata. " The exciting rhythms of "Hysteria" and "Octet" recall Stravinsky's neo-classical language. The story's tragic secret is achingly revealed by Clara's mother in "The Beauty Is (Reprise)." All the proceedings are supported by a superior cast including Victoria Clark (URINETOWN, TITANIC), Kelli O'Hara (DRACULA, JEKYLL & HYDE) and Matthew Morrison (HAIRSPRAY, FOOTLOOSE). The future of musical theater may look murky to some. But Guettel's sure-handed amalgam of styles has a voice of his own, one that can point the way.