The Sound of Music--Original Broadway Cast Album on (gasp!) LP

The film of this show is so ingrained in my mind that I really wanted to find a different version of The Sound of Music to consider. Since I'm at my parents' home for Father's Day weekend, I've fired up their old turn table and put on the thirty-three-and-a-third cast album. If you don't know what 33-1/3 refers to, I don't want to know you.

Did anyone other than Mary Martin originate two R&H roles? If so, I can't think of them. Maria would have been after Nellie in South Pacific, and it's interesting to think that both characters are rather innocent of the wider world, while being thrust into it. Ms. Martin makes a very different Maria than Julie Andrews--at least as this recording and the photos included in the fold-out album cover convey. Martin is less crystalline, slightly more adult, and does a whole lot of portamento singing that I don't remember Ms. Andrews using in the film.

SOM was the first musical I was ever in, as a 9th-grader. "I'm Friedrich. I'm fourteen. I'm a boy." Yes, I was the von Trapp's oldest son and La in the solfege line-up. What a great first show for a kid to be in. Not only was I rehearsing and performing at the Senior High School, while still being in Junior High School, but the children are front and center most of the time on stage and sing some very fun and challenging music. But you always have your six stage brothers and sisters with you, so you don't have to carry a lot on your individual shoulders.

Several songs from the show's score were left out in the film, and it was nice to hear the funny "How Can Love Survive" and "No Way to Stop It" again--although the later song has the unfortunate association of turning a blind eye to Nazism. I had forgotten the duet "Ordinary Couple", replaced in the film with "Something Good", which is a better and more interesting song, I think.

Oh, Lord, my father is setting up the slide projector for the umpteenth viewing of some trip or family reunion or other. Maybe you can't go home again, but you will see the photos again and again.

Sound of Music
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Opened in 1959
Cast: Mary Martin, Patricia Neway, Theordore Bikel, Marion Marlowe, Kurt Kaznar

Girl Crazy--Studio Cast recording on CD

According to the very good notes to the 1998 CD reissue of this 1951 studio recording of the 1930 Gershwin show, Girl Crazy owed its relatively modest original Broadway run of 272 performances to the state of the economy at the time. No matter how much changes, some things stay the same. The notes are by Didier C. Deutsch, and I must make a point to find out more about him, as he has written interesting and informative notes for many CDs I've encountered this Year.

This studio recording was produced by Goddard Lieberson (another name I've come across often) as part of a project to capture previously unrecorded musicals using musical stars of the day. In 1951 Mary Martin had just hit with South Pacific when Girl Crazy was recorded.

Since this recording hoped to capitalize on the popularity of Ms. Martin, that was the motivation behind who was chosen to sing which selections of songs. Hence, Martin sings songs of a couple of different characters from the stage show and is featured more than she would have been on a traditional production cast album. This also accounts for the crooning nature of much of the singing on the album--it's probably not the style that would have been recorded if this cast had prepared the work for the stage.

This score features one of my favorite Gershwin tunes--"Sam and Delilah" is a kind of vampy, trampy story song that Ethel Merman introduced in the original cast (along with "I Got Rhythm". As presented on this recording, the tune is played much more "straight" and isn't as effective as other versions I've heard.

Girl Crazy
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
Book by Guy Bolton and John McGowen
Opened in 1930
Cast of this studio recording: Mary Martin, Eddie Chappell, Louise Carlyle,

Mary Martin Twofer--One Touch of Venus and Lute Song

The Decca CD issue of these two show recordings are grouped together, as Mary Martin starred in both, so I might as well keep them grouped together for my purposes, too. These are not cast albums, but rather the music of the shows sung just by its stars (Ms. Martin and Kenny Baker).

About a little more than a week ago I watched and listened to a Kurt Weill opera from his Weimar days. With One Touch of Venus, we get Weill in his Broadway incarnation. Broadway in the early 40s seems to have been very transitional. Venus is very transitional for Weill. While the sung material is much more lyrical than his German works, I wouldn't quite say Weill is Americanized yet. I was particularly glad to hear the dance music included on this CD; this music hearkens strongly to the Weill of Mahagonny or Seven Deadly Sins.

I have long loved the songs of Venus. "That's Him" "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" and "Speak Low" are all great songs. "Foolish Heart" is good. The quartet "The Trouble with Women" (sung here mostly by Kenny Baker) is also good. I even like "Westwind" although it has the most inane lyrics ever. Mary Martin proves herself a real singer, both in a slightly belt way and more successfully in legato singing. Kenny Baker has a likable tenor, that's slightly nasal in the way tenors seem to have sung in the 30s and 40s.

Lute Song was the next Broadway appearance after Venus for Ms. Martin. This seems to be a very dated style of musical; the songs are not strongly integrated with the book. There are some lush Big Band-like songs that are likable but not very translatable to the concert stage because the lyrics are strange--like "See the Monkey" about how a monkey shouldn't be tamed. At least one song "Where You Are" is slightly racist. The song that the liner notes says was the hit of the show is "Mountain High, Valley Low" which sounds a bit like "Bali Hai" to me but with more insipid lyrics.

One Touch of Venus
Music by Kurt Weill
Lyrics by Odgen Nash
Opened in 1943
Cast on this recording: Mary Martin, Kenny Baker

Lute Song
Music by Raymond Scott
Lyrics by Bernard Hanighen
Opened in 1946
Cast on this recording: Mary Martin

Jennie original cast album on CD

One of the best perks of checking out cast albums from the library is that you can take a chance on a failed show to see if it offers anything worthwhile. That was my thinking when I selected the Schwartz & Dietz show Jennie from the bin. I had never heard of the show and I don't really know much about the songwriting team. But it was a star vehicle for Mary Martin, and she has yet to appear in my Year, so bring on the flop.

This show ran for only 82 performances in 1963, and I can tell why thanks to the informative liner notes. The story takes place in the early 1900s, following the career of an actress as she performs both in New York and on the road. Only one of the songs is from a show-within-a-show, though; the rest of the score is sung by the actress character and her "real life" family and friends.

The music is uniformly listenable, although I found it all very similar. The many upbeat songs are upbeat but not unique. The ballads are lush, but non-specific. Despite the liner notes waxing rhapsodic about the underappreciated score, I have to say much of didn't move me. The big ballad, or "I want" song for Ms. Martin is "Before I kiss the World Goodbye" and it's a likeable enough song, but not very specific to the anything. One very nice song literally sings the praises of Seattle, and I'm surprised it hasn't been taken up by the tourist board of that city. There's a nice duet for two men called "I Believe in Takin' a Chance". There's a sort of funny (odd) religious song "The Night May Be Dark" that has the feel of some of the religious songs that Gordon MacRae recorded with Jo Stafford.

The cast were unknowns to me, except for Ms. Martin. George Wallace has a fine baritone voice. Robin Bailey is best when he sings character stuff, like the funny "Over Here" where the lyrics compare England and the US. Jack De Lon has a nice tenor ring to his voice. Ms. Martin sings admirably and I must make a point of finding a recording of her doing better stuff.

I'm curious as to why this got transfered to CD; is there such a cry for recordings of Mary Martin?

Jenny
Music by Arthur Schwartz
Lyrics by Howard Dietz
Book by Arnold Schulman
Original cast album recorded in 1963. Released on CD in 1993
Cast: Mary Martin, George Wallace, Jack De Lon, Robin Bailey, Ethel Shutta