Category: "CDs"

Review: Linda Lavin's CD Possibilities

It’s only her first CD, but it’s safe to say that the kid’s a comer. Veteran actress Linda Lavin, whose long career includes extensive musical theater credits, has just released her debut recording, Possibilities (Ghostlight Records). The performer, best known for her starring role in the long-running hit television series Alice--and currently on a career role with successive acclaimed stage appearances in the off-Broadway production of Other Desert Cities, the Washington, D.C. production of Follies, and the recent hit play The Lyons—sparkles in this collection of pop and Broadway standards.

 

Featuring musical direction, arrangements and piano by cabaret/theater stalwart Billy Stritch (he also contributes vocals to “Corcovado”), the disc includes such classics as “It Might as Well Be Spring,” “It Amazes Me,” “In Love Again,” “There’s a Small Hotel,” and “Two for the Road.” Although Lavin’s voice is not the most powerful of instruments, her supple phrasing and sweet way with a lyric are consistently delightful.

 

The disc includes liner notes by director Hal Prince, with whom Lavin first worked a mere half century ago on the musical A Family Affair.

 

8 Questions for Helena Blackman

Helena Blackman's debut solo CD The Sound of Rodgers and Hammerstein has recently been released by Speckulation Entertainment. The 12-track recording features the singer delivering such classics as "I Enjoy Being a Girl," "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair," "Some Enchanted Evening," and "Climb Every Mountain." In addition, Jonathan Ansell and Daniel Boys join Blackman for duets of "I Have Dreamed" and "People Will Say We're in Love," respectively.

Blackman may be best known as runner-up from the BBC's reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?. Her stage credits include a UK tour of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, and the West End première of Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night. as well as The Wizard of Oz and Gypsy, among others.

Recently, Blackman agreed to do a quick Q&A for ScheckOnTheArts to talk about the disc:

ScheckOnTheArts: Do you remember the first time you heard a Rodgers and Hammerstein song or saw an R&H musical?
Helena Blackman: I can't remember which one it was. I remember watching The Sound of Music, The King and I, and Carousel but I'm not sure which one was first.

SOA: Asking you to pick a favorite song on the disc is a bit like asking a parent to pick a favorite child, so in lieu of that, am curious if there is one song on there that speaks to you more personally or deeply than the others.
HB: Hmmm. 'I Have Confidence', certain lines in that, particularly "I must stop these doubts all these worries". The song is very appropriate for my journey through my career so far, wanting to be positive and learning how to be. 'It might as well be spring', is lyrically wonderful. So many images conjured up and comparisons to everyday things, it's so descriptive and it's a joy as an actress to play these in my mind.

SOA: What are the R&H songs that "got away" on the disc? The one(s) that you wish there had been room/time for?
HB: 'You'll Never Walk Alone' is the one that always springs to mind. It's epic but so is Climb Every Mountain. It made more sense to use 'Mountain' but I think the other speaks to me a little more.

SOA: The orchestrations on the disc are particularly fresh. What can you say about their genesis? How much input did you have?
HB: I had a general idea for the feel of them and the team and I discussed this and gave a broad brief to the arrangers. I think a lot a lot of the freshness is a natural response, influenced by the way people are writing now, what's in and fashionable and what we wish we knew many years ago and maybe how the songs may have been orchestrated had they been written now.

SOA: If you could pick only one, which of the R&H leading ladies would you want to play?
HB: One day I would like to play Anna in The King and I. It's a lovely role, a feisty soprano which I .think I am.

SOA: Looking beyond the disc, and in a similar vein, what are the musical theater roles that you're yearning to play?
HB: I'd love to play Eliza Doolittle and Mary Poppins.

SOA: Any plans for a 'sophmore' recording? And, even if not, which songwriter or songwriting team would you want to explore on a single disc?
I'd quite like to do a Disney album, or rather the sound of animated movies and touch on my childhood and everyone else's. Singing the songs of Alan Menken...amazing.

SOA: And finally, what have I’ve missed? What are you up to these days and projects that you'd like to share?
HB: I'm still promoting the album and am back auditioning. I would really like to do some new and contemporary work as I haven't had the opportunity to touch on this yet and I'd like to tick that off.

For further information, visit:  www.speckulationentertainment.com

 

CD Review: Our First Mistake

You probably haven’t heard of them yet, but it’s only a matter of time until you do. Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk are a musical theater composing team who has won virtually every prize there is for promising up-and-comers, including the Kleban, Jonathan Larson and Richard Rodgers awards. They have a new musical, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown, opening this summer at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre, and they’ve just released their debut CD, Our First Mistake, available now from Sh-K-Boom Records. 

 

Featuring melodic, pop-style songs with wittily incisive lyrics, the terrific album features an eclectic line-up of singers, including stars like Kelli O’Hara and Laura Osnes as well as various Broadway performers and such recording artists as singer/pianist Vienna Teng.

 

You can hear songs from the album performed live this Monday night (Feb. 7) at Le Poisson Rouge, located at 158 Bleecker Street in the West Village. Part of a concert series dubbed the You Made This Tour, the show features a roster of performers including Matt Doyle (Spring Awakening), Kate Shindle (Legally Blonde), Meghann Fahy (Next to Normal), Osnes and many others. Showtime is 10pm, and tickets are a very reasonable $20. You can purchase them at www.lepoissonrouge.com or by calling 212-505-3474.   

 

Upcoming dates include shows as the Canal Room (Feb. 28, 7pm) and again at Le Poisson Rouge (Mar. 27, 7pm). 

Review/Preview: Everett Bradley's Holidelic CD and Upcoming Joe's Pub Concert

Not since James Brown’s Christmas Album has there been a Yuletide-themed collection as funky as this latest release from Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter/actor Everett Bradley (Broadway’s Swing). Featuring mostly original songs as well as very loose adaptations of Tchaikovsky, “Frosty the Snowman,” “Little Drummer Boy” and the like, Holidelic is a relentlessly fun and joyful disc that recalls the glory days of George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic.

Bradley and his cohorts will be performing music from the CD at a series of five shows at Joe’s Pub on Dec. 17-20, including a family matinee on Dec. 19 at 2:00 pm that will surely have the kids dancing in the narrow aisles.

For more info on the shows, go to www.joespub.com or call 212-967-7555.

DVD Review: SONDHEIM! The Broadway Concert

For all of you unlucky souls who couldn’t be there, Image Entertainment has released SONDHEIM! The Birthday Concert, a DVD and Blu-ray of the concert held this March at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in honor of the famed theater composer’s 80th birthday.  

 

Featuring longtime Sondheim collaborator Paul Gemignani conducting the New York Philharmonic, the droll comic hosting of actor David Hyde Pierce and a gallery of theater stars, including many veterans of Sondheim productions, this is a rapturous event, providing the opportunity to hear the composer’s music performed by a lush, full orchestra. 

 

Among the many highlights are Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters movingly reuniting for “Move On” from Sunday in the Park With George; John McMartin reprising his decades-ago rendition of “The Road You Didn’t Take” from Follies, and the duet between two generations of Sweeney Todds, Michael Cerveris and George Hearn, on “Pretty Women.”

 

There are also rarities for the true Sondheim obsessives. Victoria Clark sings “Don’t Laugh” from the little known Judy Holliday musical Hot Spot; Laura Benanti performs “So Many People” from the rarely seen Saturday Night; and Audra McDonald does a version of “The Glamorous Life” that was originally written for the film version of A Little Night Music.

 

You’ll share the live audience’s excitement as Pierce warbles “Beautiful Girls” while a procession of Broadway divas—LuPone, McDonald, Peters, Marin Mazzie, Donna Murphy and Elaine Stritch—sashay onto the stage wearing stunning red dresses (well, Stritch is in a pantsuit). The solo numbers that follow include LuPone’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” and Stritch’s triumphant “I’m Still Here.”

 

The finale, featuring an army of Broadway gypsies marching into the auditorium and delivering a soaring choral rendition of “Sunday,” is likely to move you to tears. 

 

Image Entertainment. $24.98 (DVD), $29.98 (Blu-ray). www.image-entertainment.com.