Category Archives: CDs

Marty sings!

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Now here’s an original cast album that will be near and dear to many a Bay Area theater-loving heart: Martin Short’s Fame Becomes Me.

Last year, under the auspices of Best of Broadway and SHN, Canadian comic Short and his intrepid crew unveiled a Broadway-bound musical at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre that was messy but fun.

The idea was that Short is performing a one-man autobiographical show. But in truth, Short’s life has been pretty sweet and happy, so he made up a bunch of stuff (family dysfunction, drug addiction, death by giant snowball) and hired some really terrific supporting players to fuel his lies.

The focus was more on Short and his slapstick-happy antics (with guest appearances by his characters Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick) than it was on show tunes. But writers Marc Shaiman (music) and Scott Wittman (lyrics) came up with some lively songs that live on in a new recording from Ghostlight Records.

What’s interesting for those of us who saw the show in San Francisco is how different the score was on Broadway. In the three months it took for Fame to go from the Bay Area to New York, the score shaped up quite nicely. For instance, the opening number we saw, “Party with Marty,” is replaced with the much tighter “Another Curtain Goes Up.”

Mary Birdsong’s extraordinarily good Judy Garland imitation is put to great use on “The Salesman That Got Away” (called “The Farmer’s Daughter” here), and there’s a spiffy “welcome to Broadway” number called “Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba Broadway” that we didn’t see here.

Short’s courtship with his wife (played by “MadTV’s” marvelous Nicole Parker) is given a Sondheim spin in “Backstage Courtship” and “Married to Marty.”

The deathly snowball is gone, replaced by a lightning bolt. But some of the best stuff we saw _ the Hair spoof, Stepbrother de Jesus, Parker’s Britney Spears imitation and Capthia Jenkins’ aptly named “A Big Black Lady Stops the Show” _ is still here.

Funny lines (there’s a generous amount of dialogue included) and lyrics abound. I think my favorite is Jiminy Glick visiting a near-death Short in the hospital and singing: “We’ll visit Cher up in the plastic surgery ward. We’ll gather all the skin she left and make a little man.”

In San Francisco, Jenkins sang “Frieda May’s Lament,” but that song was gone by the time the show reached New York. Luckily for us, Jenkins’ vibrant performance is preserved as a bonus track.

The recording of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me hits shelves of both the solid and digital variety April 10. For more, visit www.ghostlightrecords.com or www.martinshortthemusical.com. There are rumors that the show will tour later this year.

Here’s Marty introducing Capathia Jenkins and her big number, “Let a Big Black Lady Stop the Show” at last year’s Broadway on Broadway in Times Square.

`Spring’ has sprung

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In honor of this week’s vernal equinox, I want to sing the praises of my latest musical theater obsession: Spring Awakening.

Having been a Duncan Sheik (below, left) fan from the moment I listened to his first album (1997’s Duncan Sheik), I was anticipating greatness when I heard that Sheik and his frequent songwriting partner, Steven Sater(below, right), were working on a musical. I liked what the two had done with Sater’s Nero (Another Golden Rome) at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre last year, but that was really more of a play with music than a full-on musical.

When Spring Awakening opened last summer at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York, I was thrilled by the positive buzz but unsure that any new musical of quality, especially a brainy one based on a late-19th-century drama by Franz Wedekind, would surely be a commercial disaster.

I’m so happy I was wrong. Spring Awakening triumphed at the Atlantic and moved to Broadway in December, and, perhaps best of all, the cast recording was released on Decca Broadway.

Here’s a clip of the Broadway cast singing “Touch Me” from last month on “The View” (Rosie O’Donnell is a HUGE fan of the show).

The album is a Duncan Sheik/show tune fan’s dream. Sheik’s inimitable sound infuses almost every track, but the voices of the young cast (they’re all 20 or younger) are stunning. Some of the male voices even sound like Sheik from time to time, and the opportunity to hear the “Sheik” sound sung by women is heavenly.

I read the Wedekind play to get a better idea of what I was listening to and was surprised just how out there this 1891 play really is with its frank depiction of represeed German teenagers exploring sex and their bodies and being punished for it. In the play we get suicide, abortion, child abuse and even a little homosexuality. Frankly, after reading the play, I still wasn’t sure how the decidedly pop-rock music worked in the show.

Then I saw a bootleg DVD of Spring Awakening, filmed by a ballsy audience member when the show was still at the Atlantic (I know, I know, bootlegs are wrong, but sometimes you just can’t get to New York). Suddenly I got it. The songs are the contemporary link to all the angst and passion of the century-old story. Sater’s adaption of the play is pretty faithful to Wedekind (mercifully streamlined), and the songs (Sater’s lyrics, Sheik’s music) are happening now, and comment on the play and on the characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.

The CD, as brilliant as it is, doesn’t convey nearly the level of energy on stage, which is heightened enormously by Bill T. Jones’ choreography and the performances by the tremendously appealing cast. But the CD is fantastic (beautifully produced by Sheik), and it’s a step forward for the “rock” musical because it’s not trying too hard. It rocks when it needs to and gets introverted and intimate when it needs to. The score is passionate and painful and moving. Tony Awards, please, for Sheik and Sater. Best of all, the music sounds like something teenagers might actually listent to without pandering to trendy tastes or apologizing for being show music.

I’m going to see Spring Awakening in April. I just hope the real thing is as good as the version in my head. I’m guessing it will be.

Here’s the cast in a video for “The Bitch of Living.”

Visit the official Spring Awakening Web site here.

CD reviews: `Company,’ “Sterling Ovations’

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There’s a whole realm of local show business we don’t get to see unless our company throws a big shindig and hires an entertainment provider like Clark Sterling’s Sterling Performances.

For the last 15 years, Sterling — a veteran of Les Miserables and numerous other shows — has been working with a stable of local performers to provide show tune pizzazz to corporate events, concerts and special occasions.

The only problem with finding success in this corporate realm is that too often theater enthusiasts aren’t able to enjoy the fruits of Oakland-based Sterling’s labors.

Being the generous man he is, Sterling has produced a new CD, “Sterling Ovations: The Best of Broadway with Clark Sterling & Company.”

“I decided it was time to share these terrific vocalists, musicians and songs with a broader audience,” Sterling says.

The CD, which is available at Amazon.com, features Sterling along with Danielle Bixby, Jesse Bradman, Elizabeth Ann Campisi, Susan Himes-Powers, Michelle Jordan, Jonathan Poretz, Stephanie Rhoads and Michael Taylor.

Musical directors Cesar Cancino and Ross Gualco venture just far enough away from the tried-and-true Broadway arrangements to make even chestnuts like “Ya Got Trouble” and “All That Jazz” fresh.

This is a great showcase for some truly wonderful local talent and is Sterling’s best CD yet.

For information visit www.sterlingperformances.com.

The next best thing to seeing a Broadway musical is listening to the cast album.

To these ears, nothing will ever supplant 1970’s original cast recording of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company as the definitive take on Sondheim’s brash, bitter, brilliant songs.

Well, there’s a new, mostly well-received Company on Broadway right now, and it has been Doyled, which is to say director John Doyle has done what is fast becoming his usual trick: there’s no orchestra per se. All the actors play their own instruments, which makes for an intriguing CD experience: we’re hearing the show, but missing it at the same time.

The new cast recording from Nonesuch/PS Classics gives us much more dialogue, so we get a real sense of just how icy and sharp this show really is. The dialogue interruptions can mar a song like “Another Hundred People,” but the talky chunks can also serve as a great bridge, as between “The Ladies Who Lunch” and the finale, “Being Alive.”

Raul Esparza, who stars as birthday boy Bobby, gives a full-throttle performance (especially on “Mary Me a Little,” cut from the original show but now restored), but he strains his way through some of the material like “Someone Is Waiting.”

The new orchestrations (by Mary-Mitchell Campbell) focus more attention on Sondheim’s incisive, often funny lyrics, which is a good thing. But no matter how much I enjoy the new recording, I find myself longing for the groovy ’70s vibe of the original.

`Happy’ music

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American Conservatory Theater’s first-ever cast album _ for last year’s superb Happy End by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill _ is released Tuesday (Jan.30) on the Ghostlight Records label.

The CD _ the first English-language recording of the score _ is beautifully produced by David Frost and preserves music director/conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos’ excellent work with a snazzy, jazzy eight-piece band.

The Brecht-Weill score (with lyrics adapted by Michael Feingold) is more accessible than some of their other collaborations and features some sonic gems including “The Sailor’s Tango” (sensuously performed by Charlotte Cohn), “The Mandalay Song” (Jack Willis in a vigorous performance as Sam “Mammy” Wurlitzer) and another lustrous Cohn performance on “Surabaya Johnny.”

The ensemble’s moment to shine in this Guys and Dolls meets Threepenny Opera tale of gangsters and Salvation Army soldiers comes in the prologue, with the cynical “blessing” of Rockefeller, Ford and J.P. Morgan.

The show’s lively but sardonic tone resonates throughout the disc, coming on strong in the epilogue: “And though the poor may starve and die, make sure no earthly court will try the rich who rule the Earth the way you rule the sky, almighty Lord!”

Happy End makes for some very happy listening indeed.

Seasonal sounds

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Listening to some of this year’s holiday CD offerings, I can heartily recommend two so far.

“Cool Yule,” Bette Midler (Columbia)Divinity and Christmas are, of course, related, so it’s no wonder that the Divine Miss M. finally checks in with a Christmas album. The results are so good you have wonder, what took so long? Nevermind that this nice Jewish lady from Hawaii has recorded a Christmas album (Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond have recorded four Christmas albums between them). Midler brings her customary sass and humor to “Merry Christmas” and “Cool Yule” but lends her dramatic heft to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Don’t miss her “Mele Kalikimaka,” and though it sounds cheesy, her re-hash of “From a Distance (Christmas Version)” actually reveals that the heavy ballad was always meant to be a Christmas song. I know it sounds crazy, but the sap-happy “Distance” really works as a carol. No, really. It does.

For more Ms. M or to sample her Christmas fare, visit her Web site.

“Broadway’s Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure, Vol. 8,” Various Artists (Rock-It Science)
The casts from Broadway musicals — mostly the crop currently on the boards _ jazz up the holiday soundscape with a wildly varied and highly entertaining two-disc collection of tunes both new and old to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The ensemble from The Color Purple does gorgeous things with a medley of “Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella,” “Joy to the World” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” while more comic tunes come from The Wedding Singer (Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukah Song”), Avenue Q (“The Holi-daze”) and Altar Boyz (“Joseph’s Dilemma”).

My personal favorites are from the ever-bizarre Kiki and Herb warbling through “Like a Snowman” and the Rent cast doing “Angels We Have Heard on High” with Jonathan Larson’s melody for “Santa Fe” worked on. I also thoroughly enjoyed the gross, funny and sweet Christmas story from the [title of show] cast and the Spamalot holiday tale involving Brian, the man who isn’t Jesus from Monty Python‘s The Life of Brian.

You can purchase “Broadway’s Greatest Gift” and other fundraising items from BC/EFA here.

If you discover any not-to-be-missed holiday music, please let me and the other Theater Dogs know.