Barbara Cook--the Bell Telephone Hour appearances on DVD

Here I go again, waxing poetic on the talents and watch-ability of Barbara Cook. Haven't I done that recently? Well, these excepts from the Bell Telephone Hour from 1960, 1962, and 1965 back up my opinion.

Ms. Cook serves up Broadway, operetta, and Americana songs without missing a note or a beat. Perhaps it was this early experience doing all types of music that made her musically curious (and what do I mean bi-curious) in the exploration of songs for her later cabaret acts. Whatever the outcome, I'm glad to have seen these early television appearances to remember that Ms. Cook is not only a very good singer, but was also a lively performer. She dances quite a bit in these excerpts, something I'm sure she's not doing at 80+ now.

I very much liked the three songs from No Strings, by Rodgers without Hammerstein. I must check out a full recording of this show.

Ms. Cook performs with two top baritones of the 1960s in these clips: Robert Goulet (hot, and I do mean HOT off his success with Camelot) and Alfred Drake. Goulet and Drake are of two very different musical generations with Drake teaming with Cook for the operetta offerings, such as The Merry Widow. The Bell Telephone Hour Chorus also makes a lot of appearances, and I swear one of the male choristers was Bob McGrath from Sesame Street.

Well, we all start somewhere.

Barbara Cook: the Bell Telephone Hour Appearances 1960-1965
Music by Johan Strauss, Jr., Lerner and Loewe, Jerry Herman, Franz Lehar, Stephen Foster, Richard Rodgers, and others.
Cast: Barbara Cook, Robert Goulet, Anita Gillette, Alfred Drake

Kismet Original Broadway Cast Album

How could I not love a cast album that features two of my favorite Broadway baritones? That happens less often than a good three-way, so I'd better take it slow and savor every moment.

In this case I'm savoring Alfred Drake and Richard Kiley and the rest of the cast of the original Broadway production of Kismet. I've never seen this show on stage, but suspect (from the synopsis provided in the notes to this CD issue) that it's a big, loud, bold, colorful hodge-podge--like a Middle Eastern market full of some stuff you love and more stuff you could do without. Fortunately, the music is most of the stuff I love.

Alfred Drake had already originated the roles of Curly in Oklahoma and Petruchio in Kiss Me Kate, so his mark on Broadway was already indelible. With Kismet, he has probably more of a musical challenge with big songs including "Fate", "Gesticulate" and "The Olive Tree". Each of these three vary in flavor from operetta to vaudeville to folk song, and Mr. Drake changes gears seamlessly, all the while setting the vocal standard for this music.

Mr. Kiley is in the early stages of his career, being 30 or 31, when cast as the Caliph. Twelve years later he will create the title role in Man of La Mancha . He is perhaps a bit miscast as Caliph, as the role calls for some singing in the upper reaches of the baritone range. But I'm forgiving.

Doretta Morrow is new to my Year, and I must check out her credits to see how she can reappear; she has a soubrette soprano voice totally appropriate for the show. Joan Diener is also in the cast and she will reunite with Kiley in La Mancha, too.

The liner notes refer to re-mountings of the show with Drake reprising his role, but the Broadway database don't include them. Is it time for a revival? How about with Brian Stokes Mitchell? Only if he's not tired of following in Mr. Drake's roles.

The notes also say that Alexander Borodin was awarded a posthumous Tony for Best Musical. Borodin died in 1887, the Tony was awarded in 1954; I wonder who gave the acceptance speech.

Kismet
Music by Alexander Borodin
Adapted and with Lyric by Robert Wright and George Forrest
Book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis
Original Broadway Cast recording
Released in 1954 by Columbia Masterworks
CD reissue 2000
Cast: Alfred Drake, Richard Kiley, Joan Diener, Doretta Morrow, Henry Calvin

Kiss Me Kate Original Broadway Cast recording

Today's entry is Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate, the original cast recording from 1949. That makes the first "repeat" performer on my entries to be the unlikely Lisa Kirk, who was in Mack & Mabel and originated the role of Lois/Bianca in Kate.

And I get another one of my favorite singers, Alfred Drake. You probably won't have to wait too many more days to hear me wax rhapsodic again about Mr. Drake and the roles he sang--Curly in Oklahoma, Hajj in Kismet, and the "Maurice Chevalier" role in Gigi. Ooh, I just checked out Drake's credits on the Broadway database and he did a bunch of Gilbert & Sullivan and was Macheath in Duke Ellington's musical Beggar's Holiday.

I've never seen Kiss Me Kate on stage, but I have seen the film. I really only remember the weird camera angles to try to make the 3-D affects for the film. And Ann Miller's whirling dervish tap number at the opening of the film. But I'm here to take about this cast album...

The extensive notes to this CD reissue spend a lot of time taking about the dealings between composer Cole Porter and book writer Bella Spewack, which didn't really captivate me (this back story, I mean, not the book of the musical).

Kiss Me Kate
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Book by Bella and Samuel Spewack
Originally released by Columbia Records in 1949
Reissued on CD by Columbia Masterworks in 1998
Cast: Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk, Harold Lang