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20th Century Masters: The Best of the Andrews Sisters (Millennium Collection)
: :The oft-touted critical notion that pop music revivals are usually spawned by reactionary nostalgia founders miserably when trying to explain swing music's resurgence, a renaissance seen over by latter-day hipsters born three decades after the music's supposed demise. A better explanation can be found on this 12-track Andrews Sisters sampler: vibrant, sassy music that's influenced artists from Bette Midler to the Manhattan Transfer and beyond. Starting as purveyors of typically serene ballads in the late '30s, the Andrews' tight harmonies virtually became the nation's soundtrack during the war years when wed ...
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The Definitive Collection
: :The oft-touted critical notion that pop music revivals are usually spawned by reactionary nostalgia founders miserably when trying to explain swing music's resurgence, a renaissance seen over by latter-day hipsters born three decades after the music's supposed demise. A better explanation can be found on this 12-track Andrews Sisters sampler: vibrant, sassy music that's influenced artists from Bette Midler to the Manhattan Transfer and beyond. Starting as purveyors of typically serene ballads in the late '30s, the Andrews' tight harmonies virtually became the nation's soundtrack during the war years when wed ...
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You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999 Broadway Revival Cast)
: :It's easy to see why You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is so popular. With its simple set and small cast, it has become a staple of high-school drama and small-scale productions all over America. Of course, this doesn't necessarily translate into a grandiose Broadway show, but this Michael Mayer-directed production is enjoyable. Anthony Rapp (Rent) plays an effective Charlie and Ilana Levine's Lucy is fun. The lively 'Snoopy' number (Roger Bart plays the canine's role) is the musical's highlight, but such tunes as 'Beethoven Day' really date the musical. Some ...
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Swingin' Miss 'D'
: :It's easy to see why You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is so popular. With its simple set and small cast, it has become a staple of high-school drama and small-scale productions all over America. Of course, this doesn't necessarily translate into a grandiose Broadway show, but this Michael Mayer-directed production is enjoyable. Anthony Rapp (Rent) plays an effective Charlie and Ilana Levine's Lucy is fun. The lively 'Snoopy' number (Roger Bart plays the canine's role) is the musical's highlight, but such tunes as 'Beethoven Day' really date the musical. Some ...
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Ultimate Petula Clark
: :It's easy to see why You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is so popular. With its simple set and small cast, it has become a staple of high-school drama and small-scale productions all over America. Of course, this doesn't necessarily translate into a grandiose Broadway show, but this Michael Mayer-directed production is enjoyable. Anthony Rapp (Rent) plays an effective Charlie and Ilana Levine's Lucy is fun. The lively 'Snoopy' number (Roger Bart plays the canine's role) is the musical's highlight, but such tunes as 'Beethoven Day' really date the musical. Some ...
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Gold: A 50th Anniversary Celebration
: :Johnny Mathis's 2006 return to the spotlight was richly deserved, not because his career needed resurrecting--he's continued touring and recording for breathless fans well into his seventh decade--but because post-boomer generations shouldn't be allowed to roam the world asking 'Johnny Who?' when his name gets mentioned. Mathis is that important an artist, and this compendium of his work, best thought of as a winking glance, does an able job of demonstrating why: 'Chances Are,' a slice of pop brilliance set to a piano with a broken heart, has always sounded as ...
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A Little Night Music (1973 Original Broadway Cast)
: essential recording:Perhaps best known for the hit 'Send In the Clowns,' Stephen Sondheim's glamorous 3/4 waltz-time musical recalls enchanted evenings, white kidskin elbow gloves, and romance of the green-eyed bittersweet and bed-hopping sort. The ruse is that these folks lead 'ordinary lives': the father is widowed, remarries, and briefly rekindles a sack-side former flame; the son flirts with the maid; the child bride is cuckolded yet loves and is loved by the son; and the maid has a romp with the butler. Adapted from a mid-'50s Ingmar Bergman film, the ...
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Miss Saigon (Original 1989 London Cast)
: :It's probably best known for raising the stakes for 1980s blockbuster shows by landing a helicopter on stage, but Miss Saigon is also a good show with good music. As a follow-up to their international smash Les Misérables, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg (with an assist from Richard Maltby Jr.) adapted the tale of Madame Butterfly to the Vietnam War, realized here by the original 1989 London cast. While it may seem overheated at times, the despair and passion fit the tragic story, and Schönberg's pop-flavored style receives its most appropriate ...
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We Are in Love
: :Harry Connick Jr. has a rare gift for summoning the style of classic 1940s saloon singing, hinting at Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and especially Dick Haymes, without engaging in actual impersonation. What's more uncanny still is his songwriting, an idiomatic command of the standards that often summons some of the rhythmic ease of Gershwin, the tunefulness of Jerome Kern, and the wit of Cole Porter. Both his singing and songwriting talents are evident on this CD, recorded in 1990 when Connick was just 22. Its emphasis is squarely on the subject ...
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Songs for Swingin' Lovers!
: essential recording:Sinatra already had one youthful career behind him by the time he made Songs for Swingin' Lovers! His were no longer the lustrous pipes of the kid crooner from Hoboken--the voice that made bobbysoxers swoon--but from the first notes of the opening track ('You Make Me Feel So Young') he seems to have discovered a musical fountain of youth that fully justifies the exclamation point in the album title. There's a buoyant new spring in his step, accented by Nelson Riddle's lighter-than-air arrangements, that makes the Columbia records of ...
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