While we’re all waiting for PS Classics to release the cast recording of the Nine revival, Sony has thrown us a bone in the form of a wonderfully expanded, two disc version of the original 1982 Broadway cast recording, one of five new reissues in its Columbia Broadway Masterworks series. All are scheduled to be available in stores as of May 13.
The greatest thing about the Nine set is the sheer amount of new material included. When Broadway cast albums were made during the LP era, it was unusual for much more material to be laid down during the studio sessions than could ultimately be fit on one record. For this reason, the more substantial (in terms of quantity) Broadway scores had to be abbreviated for recording purposes, except in very rare instances when they were allotted two-LP sets. (The most famous, or infamous, victim of this circumstance was and is Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.)
It turns out that Nine was an exception. As original album producer Mike Berniker piquantly explains in notes contained in the CD booklet, “We had five major stars, and my problem was to avoid the normal rivalries that existed between them. [Recording] the show song by song in the usual manner would only have made things worse, as each actress, becoming the center of attraction, might have tried to make too much of the situation…The only way to avoid this, in my opinion, was to go literally from the top and, in effect, record the whole show live. This was a rather daring approach, but the gamble paid off.” Berniker goes on to explain that the entire score was run through twice for the microphones, and he is correct in claiming that the album “acquired more of the life and spontaneity you get in a live performance” because of this unusual method. Happily, those two full recordings of the score were accessed for subsequent editions of the cast album on other media, such as cassette tape and CD, that can hold lots more music than a vinyl LP. Raul Julia — the original Guido Contini — is no Luciano Pavarotti. Nor is he Sergio Franchi, who succeeded him in the part. But Julia was a great actor, and his singing actually sounds better on the Nine cast album than I remember it sounding in the theater. His female co-stars — Karen Akers, Anita Morris, Shelly Burch, and the one-and-only Liliane Montevecchi — are simply devoon.
Many aficionados will find Sony’s re-release of the original Broadway cast recording (OBCR) of the Harold Arlen-Truman Capote musical House of Flowers as exciting as the Nine CD, though for a different reason. Previously unreleased material from the original studio sessions may be heard in track #9 (“Mardi Gras”) and #13 (“Slide, Boy, Slide”). There are three bonus tracks drawn from other sources, the most interesting of them being a demo of the show’s most famous song, “A Sleepin’ Bee,” as performed with some fascinating alternate lyrics by composer Arlen. Another of the bonus tracks features Capote reading a section of his novella upon which the musical was based.
But the really joyous news here is that the sound quality of this disc is about 100 times better than that of the previous CD transfer, issued through the CBS Special Products division years ago and long out of print. It’s as if a veil has been lifted and we can now hear with amazing clarity the gorgeous Arlen-Capote songs as rendered by Diahann Carroll, Pearl Bailey, and the rest of the original company. In fact, the sound is so pristine that Arlen’s famous dubbing of one note in the final phrase of “I Never Has Seen Snow” for a laryngitis-afflicted Carroll is more obvious than ever. Not only that, it sounds to my ears as if the last five words of that line, “my love is to me,” are sung by someone other than Carroll or Arlen. Give a listen and see what you think.
The remaining three items in the new batch of Sony reissues are somewhat less exciting because (1) these recordings have been readily available in previous, excellent CD transfers that remained steadily in print through the years, and (2) the bonus tracks and other new materials included are not so special or extensive. The Candide reissue would seem to be the most unnecessary of all; this is, by my count, the third CD edition, and all of them have presented superb transfers of the session tapes. (I always point to Candide as a prime example of a very early stereo recording that sounds as good as, if not better than, some far more recent items. Ironically, the new CD is mislabeled as “MONO” in big letters on the disc itself. Given that Sony’s most recent CD issue of the original cast album of The Pajama Game was erroneously labeled “STEREO,” was this done on the theory that two wrongs make a right?)
Still, a reissue is bound to bring new attention to this classic recording — and what’s wrong with that? Robert Rounseville, Barbara Cook, Irra Petina and company give luminous performances of the Leonard Bernstein-Richard Wilbur score, and the orchestra sounds magnificent under the direction of Samuel Krachmalnick. (It’s really too bad that some other actor is identified as Rounseville in a photo contained in the CD booklet. Come on, guys! Get it together!) The one bonus track is a smashing 1960 rendition of the Candide overture as played by the New York Philharmonic under Bernstein.
Columbia’s 1950 studio recording of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s Pal Joey was popular enough to spur a 1952 Broadway revival of the show that was much better received than the original 1940 production, now viewed as having been ahead of its time. Vivienne Segal, who created the role of Mrs. Vera Prentiss Simpson, is very much present here; playing opposite her is Harold Lang, whose most famous previous turn was as Bill/Lucentio in Kiss Me, Kate. Both would go on to star in the 1952 revival that also featured Elaine Stritch as Melba Snyder. (Alas, Stritch is not heard on this album; Melba’s big number, “Zip,” is sung by Jo Hurt.)
During the 1950s and beyond, producer Goddard Lieberseon and ace conductor Lehman Engel collaborated on many important Columbia studio recordings of once-neglected scores — The Boys From Syracuse with Jack Cassidy, Portia Nelson, and Bibi Osterwald, Brigadoon with Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, and Lady in the Dark with Risë Stevens are three other shining examples — but this Pal Joey is one of the best of the lot.
Finally, Sony’s new edition of the cast album of the Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents flop Anyone Can Whistle serves as a reminder that this is no unjustly failed classic. The truth is that it’s a smug, pretentious, off-putting show with a few wonderful songs in it — e.g., “Everybody Says Don’t,” “With So Little to be Sure Of,” and the plaintive title tune. There’s no better example of the artistic confusion that was going on during the creation of this musical than the fact that the best song in the score, “There Won’t Be Trumpets,” was cut before the opening. Fortunately, it was recorded by Lee Remick during the OBCR studio sessions in 1964. (Received wisdom is that the song was dropped because Remick, who was more of an actress than a singer, played the dialogue scene leading into “Trumpets” so movingly that her less effective performance of the song itself seemed superfluous. Well, her delivery of the number sounds just fine to me — and, at any rate, the dialogue is not included on the cast album.)
The new CD also contains four Sondheim demo recordings, drawn from his archives. Though the master’s singing voice is negligible, his rendition of the show’s title song is so stirring that it must be counted as one of the disc’s highlights.
