Jason Graae--An Evening of Self-Indulgence--Live at the Cinegrill on CD

Aptly titled.

I like Mr. Graae's singing. He has an ability to reach into his top register with apparent ease and without losing any legato in his line. I also liked his choice of music for this production--all of which has touched his career at some point or in some way. I could have used one more comic number to balance the ballads, but that's a very personal preference. Mr. Graae ably delivers both comic songs and ballads.

Where the recording of this event let me down was in the patter between numbers. There was too much of it, and I believe unless you were one of Jason's best friends it wouldn't be very funny. Undoubtedly, the loss of visuals hurt here. But you know, you're producing an audio-only CD, so adjust accordingly.

Jason Graae: An Evening of Self-Indulgence
Live cabaret performance at the Cinegrill in Los Angeles on CD
Cast: Jason Graae, Gerald Sternbach

Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds on DVD

When I took this DVD out of the Netflix envelope, I was afraid it was going to be another special concert offering, but it turns out Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds was made for PBS's American Masters series, and is more talking heads about the history, importance and substance of Rodgers' music than singing heads. I actually would have like a little less conversation and a little more music-making, but seeing as I've already listened to a Rodgers one-off concert, perhaps this is better--for now.

The documentary goes through the three major phases of Rodgers' career--two decades of work with Lorenz Hart, including some time in Hollywood; nearly two more decades of work with Oscar Hammerstein II; and the post-Hammerstein years when Rodgers is working on his own, and several others.

Among the many knowledgeable and informative talking heads are performers--Shirley Jones, Barbara Cook, Diahann Carroll, Maureen McGovern, and jazz musicians Billy Taylor and Barbara Carroll; Rodgers family members--daughter and composer Mary Rodgers Guettel, daughter Linda Rodgers, and grandson and composer Adam Guettel; music theater historians and producers such as Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, which licenses Rodgers' shows.

There are several interesting historical clips the documentary including the wonderful "Bench Scene" from Carousel with John Raitt recorded for television, and the lovely Diahann Carroll singing the title song from "No Strings". I must make a point of finding more to listen to from this show.

I've had the idea for a while to do a concert called Rodgers Without Hammerstein, focusing on his work with Hart, his work alone and including things that wouldn't have lyrics like "Victory at Sea", "Slaughter on 5th Avenue", and the dance music from R&H shows --like "The Carousel Waltz" which has always been one of my favorite pieces of music.

Any takers?

Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds
Produced for PBS American Masters in 2001
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers and others
Cast: Shirley Jones, Julie Andrews, Ted Chapin, Mary Rodgers, Adam Guettel, Barbara Cook, John Raitt, Diahann Carroll, Maureen McGovern

Stars and the Moon: Betty Buckley at the Donmar Warehouse

This was part of the "Divas at Donmar" series of concerts presented at London's Donmar Warehouse in the early 2000s. I'll have to see if any of the other "Divas" are available, because Stars and the Moon: Betty Buckley is pretty good.

This is more a jazz cabaret concert to my ears than a musical theater cabaret concert--even though the songs come from Broadway in many cases. The arrangements by Ms. Buckley's music director Kenny Werner are significantly arranged and the piano accompaniments vary tremendously from the original. Many are incredibly interesting and clever. Of particular note was the arrangement of "Send in the Clowns", which is completely re-harmonized. Sometimes, these arrangements went a bit too far for my tastes, but then I am an old musical theater queen. There was one section (which began with Stephen Schwartz's "Meadowlark") where I wondered if all the piano parts would have the same driving rhythm.

Ms. Buckley is a very likeable performer who strides the chasms between Broadway, jazz and cabaret very well. She makes each song her own, with some trademark vocalisms and physicalities, like the best of jazz performers. There were some arrangements, though, where I wished Ms. Buckley would adventure at least a bit from the published melody. I found this particularly true of her encore, "Amazing Grace". If any song can take a bit of noodling, it is that one.

Still, this is an interesting evening of familiar and unfamiliar songs, well presented.

A Class Act--Manhattan Theatre Club production on CD

I don't know why I felt compelled to identify this recording as from the Manhattan Theatre Club production; to my knowledge there are no other recordings of A Class Act. This show contains a group of songs by Edward Kleban (right, who most notably wrote the lyrics for A Chorus Line). After Mr. Kleban's death in from mouth cancer in 1987, these songs lay fallow until they were grouped together and written into a new book musical telling the story of Mr. Kleban's life. A Class Act premiered in 2001.

While I have certainly listened to the songs from A Chorus Line, and know something about their composer, Marvin Hamlisch, I knew nothing about their librettist. Well, Edward Kleban was a composer also, but most of his songs remained unknown at the time of his death. That's too bad, because many of those included in A Class Act are worthy of being heard. I wonder if his compositional style--which sounds much like William Finn to me--was too ahead of its time.

The format of the show is not overly original, but works for a bio-musical about a musical theater composer. We open at Mr. Kleban's funeral and are sent back on a journey through his live. Along the way, we meet his friends, his colleagues, and his songs.

The songs that work best for me are the upbeat or character songs. The love songs come off slightly too sappy for me, as even their titles--"One More Beautiful Song", "Follow Your Star", and "Next Best Thing to Love"--suggest. The upbeat songs, particularly "Gauguin's Shoes" (with knowledgeable and funny lyrics) and "Better" (which was recorded by Barbra Streisand) are much more successful to my ears. The "Broadway Boogie Woogie" also includes some hysterical lyrics and should be in somebody's cabaret act.

The eight-member cast all perform well. Lonny Price, portraying Kleban" has the bulk of the singing assignments. Mr. Price is a likable performer with obvious (even just by listening to him) personality. Randy Graff is also a singer I have heard before and find very listenable, even if the music she is asked to sing here, often falls into the sappy category. The seven-member orchestra provides all the variations of breadth and color I could ask for these songs.

A Class Act: A Musical about Musicals
Music and Lyrics by Edward Kleban
Book by Linda Kline and Lonny Price
Opened in 2001
Cast: Lonny Price, Randy Graff, Jonathan Freeman, Nancy Kathryn Anderson, Carolee Carmello, David Hibbard, Julie Murney, Ray Wills

Blast--Taping of stage show for television

I started my musical training as a trumpet player--alright I took about 4 weeks of piano lessons when I was 7 or 8, but at 10 I started learning the trumpet and stuck with it through high school. Going to marching band camp at the end of each summer to get ready for the football halftime show was an annual tradition. My band camp experience was not as raunchy as the American Pie film shows, but it certainly was a raucous good time.

All that to say I am a bit pre-programmed to like Blast--which comes mostly from the drum and bugle corps tradition, while incorporating elements of modern dance, street buskering, clowning, circus, and show choir. Even if I did not have a marching band background, I think I would appreciate Blast. The show is pure spectacle, and most of that spectacle is provided by the hardworking cast who play brass instruments, dance, tumble, twirl rifles and flags, drum on anything rolling by, and even sing at a couple points.

The range of musical styles offered is blessedly wide and blessedly free of stereotypical brass music, so you never get tired of any one look or sound. I appreciated the inclusion of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring (based on the Shaker tune "'Tis a Gift to be Simple". I might have wished for one more slower-paced piece to balance all the (pun alert) full-blown numbers, but that is a minor complaint. The show (and the drum and bugle corps world) are very White, and some performers tend to get a bit scary aggressive and high-five happy. Again, I wanted this performance style to be in use of a story, or at least an emotion, which it did accomplish in the the first act "Loss".

I watched the DVD extras that are included, and while they showed things like how the show was born on the campus of Indiana University, I found some of the performer interviews cloying. I can handle one or maybe two 23 year olds telling me "This is the best experience of my life. I've never worked so hard, or developed such close friendships. What a great opportunity." But it did go on a bit. What will this show lead to for these kids? I reckon that more than several of them are now (bitterness alert) aerobic instructors.

Blast
Music by a bunch of people
Lyrics not much
Cast: a lot of Midwestern recent college grads kids who had just "aged out" of drum and bugle corps. Some of them are hot, all of them are fit.
Filmed in 2001 in London

The Car Man--stage version adapted for film on DVD

It's Carmen week here at The Year of Musical Thinking. My last entry was the version of Bizet's opera adapted by Oscar Hammerstein to the rural African-American experiences in the 1940s. Today it's The Car Man, Matthew Bourne's dance version of the story using Bizet's music updated to white America in the 1950s.

It must be the rampant sex appeal of this story which makes everyone want to adapt it for their time and place. And this version ups the sex and violence quotient; besides hot dancers in jeans and t-shirts (sometimes), there are a couple of bi-sexual characters, a lot of bludgeoning and a prison rape scene.

The Car Man never played on Broadway that I could discern, although Bourne's highly-touted all-male Swan Lake did make a splash on Broadway. This is a film version of Car Man adapted from the West End stage production , I believe.

Bourne changes Bizet's story in many ways (besides having the smoldering outsider be a man, rather than a woman). The Bizet music is used best when there is a strong sense of rhythm to hold on to (at least for me to hold on to, the dancers don't seem to have any trouble). The solo and duet dances are the most captivating, but the group numbers have a lot of athleticism to enjoy. I've said before, I don't know much about dance, but Mr. Bourne seems to have a large "vocabulary" which is based in the world of modern dance in this work. I'll need to see his Swan Lake to see if he dances other languages, too.

Some of the edits that are "outside" the theatrical staging are clumsy, but on the whole this is well filmed. Alan Vincent, who portrays the Car Man, Luca, is very sexy in the beginning, but is outshone in the second act by Will Kemp. I'm sure I'm not the first to admire Mr. Kemp, who is part of Bourne's usual group of dancers. Mr. Kemp is a beautiful dancer and a very expressive actor. He's making the transition to non-dancing roles, including Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet. Mr. Kemp also portrayed the horse Nugget in the Daniel Radcliff production of Equus, recently.

The Car Man
Story adapted and choreography by Matthew Bourne
Music by Georges Bizet
2001 stage show slightly adapted for filming
Cast: Alan Vincent, Will Kemp, Saranne Curtin, Etta Murfitt.

A Producers Two-Fer

Well it's two for the price of one today with both the 2005 film of Mel Brook's The Producers and a documentary about the recording of the cast album for the stage show in 2001. Both DVDs arrived in my mailbox on the same day and it seemed logical to pair them in an entry.

The documentary taped during the recording of the cast album is mostly delightful. Perhaps I got a bit tired of Mel Brooks during it, but it's really his story to tell, so one must be forgiving. He's earned at least that much. I was struck by how intensely everyone was concentrating during the process. There was little hardy-har-haring, even from notorious Nathan Lane. I supposed the cost of producing an album and the pressure of getting it done in one day doesn't allow for much down time. We really only see the takes that are the final ones, I suspect, and that was a bit annoying, too. I wanted to see at least one big caflooey moment, assuming there was one.

The film version was made almost four years later and the first thing that I noticed was how much Nathan Lane's voice had aged, or more accurately how much his voice had worn out. Watching the process of recording the cast album made me appreciate the strain he was placing on his voice; by the time he's gotten to the film, the strain of eight shows a week for however long he performed the role shows--or rather sounds.

The film does not really capture the inspired lunacy of this show. And while Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell don't embarrass themselves totally by taking on the roles of Ula and Franz Liebkind, having just watched the recording session with Cady Huffman and Brad Oscar, it's difficult not to feel slightly on their behalf.

I still kick myself for not trying to see the out-of-town tryout for The Producers, which happened in Chicago. I rarely get swept into the latest zeitgeist of shows, or movies, or whatever, so I usually miss a lot. But this was ol' fashioned musical comedy at it's most inspired.

I'm too much of an old bitty. Hence my love of John Raitt and Alfred Drake. Perhaps I should move to Little Old Lady Land.

The Producers: The Movie Musical
Recording The Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks
Music and Lyrics by Mel Brooks
Book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan
Directed on the stage and on film by Susan Stroman
Cast in both film and album: Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Gary Beach, Roger Bart
Additional film cast: Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell
Additional album cast: Cady Huffman, Brad Oscar

Mamma Mia! first-run film at the multiplex

It's the mother of all juke-box musicals, and while I hadn't seen Mamma Mia! on stage I was looking forward to the film for what I thought would be an infectious, silly time accompanied by ABBA music.

I was more than a bit disappointed.

The women in the cast hold up there end of the bargain much better than the men. Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried are good as mother and daughter. Christine Baranski and Julie Walters give exactly what's needed as the goofy friends of the bride's mother.

Colin Firth holds his own as befuddled potential father number 1. Stellan Skarsgard is alright as number 2. Pierce Bronsan looks great as number 3, but really should never have opened his mouth--especially to sing.

My main disappointment is in the music. I love ABBA music, but it doesn't work as something character-driven, or plot-moving, or with chorus. Perhaps my disappointment was augmented by seeing Hairspray so close to Mama Mia--Hairspray is much better and even manages to provide some character growth and address some societal issues.

Mama Mia!
Music by Benny Andersson and ABBA
Lyrics by the same
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper