Aladdin score for television production on CD

This is the third original musical for television to populate my Year. First there was Lerner and Loewe's The Little Prince, then Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, now we come to Cole Porter's Aladdin. I had never heard of this tv musical, so it attracted me when I saw it in the library bin with Cole Porter's name above the title. Well, it turns out this show is not a perennial favorite for good reason, although a couple of the songs have real verve and deserve to be heard outside of the full production.

It's hard to judge a television production just by the soundtrack, so there is much I can not discuss with regards to this production. But about the music...I like Cole Porter's music in his best shows, like Kiss Me Kate, yet here the music seems of a very generic nature. While being very listenable and at times swinging, it doesn't say much specifically about the characters or their situations. Any "Orientalism" to the score is an add-on in the orchestrations rather than in the tunes themselves.

The cast is a mixed bag of musical successes and also-rans. Sal Mineo as Aladdin does particularly poorly with his one song. Anna Maria Alberghetti's singing as the Princess is pretty enough, but without much life. Cyril Ritchard as the Emperor is the most deserving of credit and he gets three songs in this score of nine numbers. His song "No Wonder Taxes are High" could easily be adapted for current use in a cabaret act and would be funny.

This is another score where I query why the 1958 television broadcast was reissued on CD in 1992. For Cole Porter aficionados? Sal Mineo fans? Really, really guy gays?

There are four bonus tracks to the reissue that present studio demo recordings of four songs from the score, orchestrated very differently than the finished television product and sung by uncredited studio singers. In all four cases, the musical results are better in the demos than the TV versions--thanks primarily to the stronger demo voices.

I'm starting something new in the labelling with this entry. I'm adding the year the production was created, so I can track when my musicals were written. I'm sure I have a plethora of 40s, 50s, and 60s going on already, without many 70s, 80s, 90s, or 2000s. This should help me flesh out those musical decades.

The photo for this entry comes from the CD booklet for the reissue. It shows Cyril Ritchardson as the Magician, Geoffrey Holder (of 1970's 7-up commercial fame) as the Genie, and Sal Mineo as Aladdin. Mr. Holder does not appear on the recording, so there must not have been any music for the Genie. Would that the same could be said about the Disney version of Aladdin with Robin Williams.

Aladdin
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Produced for television in 1958
Soundtrack reissued on CD in 1992
Cast: Anna Maria Alberghetti, Sal Mineo, Cyril Ritchard, Geoffrey Holder, George Hall, Dennis King

Carnival Original Broadway Cast Album on CD

I hear you collectively asking "What happened to listening to cast albums, Michael? All your musical entries since July 12th have been musicals for film or television captured on DVD. Isn't the point of your Year to recapture the magic that listening to cast albums first gave you?"

Well, I have heard your queries and can respond. Getting DVDs through Netflix has been easier than finding recordings. All of the cast albums I've listened to so far have been owned by me. I'm determined to spend my musical money this Year seeing shows live, rather than buying additional cast albums, so I'm meting out the recordings I have left in my meager collection and looking into what the Chicago Public Library may have to offer for my listening pleasure.

In the meantime, I have listened to the cast album of Bob Merrill's Carnival, starring favorite song and dance man Jerry Orbach and crystalline-voice Anna Maria Alberghetti.

Carnival was one of the first musicals I saw live on stage, in a high school production that featured my baby-sitter. My guess is it was 1976 or '77. I remember nothing about it, except that the girl who played Lili (not my baby-sitter) had her arm in a cast, and I was uncertain if that was part of the story or if the girl just had a broken arm and they needed to "go on with the show." In reading through the byzantine description of how the story became the musical, and the plot of the musical, it's no wonder I don't remember much.

I have heard the most famous song from the score "Love Makes the World Go 'Round" too often and find it rather cloying at this point. The treat of discovery, though, is most of the rest of the music, which runs the gamut of styles without ever becoming predictable. The best songs of the score, for me, are "Her Face" and "She's My Love." These are Broadway baritone anthems, and I can't believe they're not sung more often. The Mel Torme version of "Her Face", presented as one of the CD bonus tracks, is over-produced and does no favor to the song. One delight of the bonus tracks is the jazz trombone choir version of "Mira" by J.J. Johnson, which has a slightly N'awlins funeral feel to it.

Bob Merrill appeared previously in my Year as the lyricist for Funny Girl, and I find it interesting that he was also a composer. Are there many Broadway composers who have written lyrics for other composer's music? I can only think of Stephen Sondheim.

Carnival
Music and Lyrics by Bob Merrill
Book by Michael Stewart
Original Broadway Cast Album on CD
Recorded in 1961; reissued with additional bonus tracks in 1989
Cast: Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jerry Orbach, Kaye Ballard, Pierre Olaf, James Mitchell