RETURN

BROADWAY FIRST TAKE
 
- a new series of CDs containing the very first recordings ever made of
songs from some of the best known Broadway musicals. The first two
volumes display the sometimes brilliant qualities of an unknown session
singer, Rose Marie Jun
 
Volume I:
Singers: Rose Marie Jun, Bernie Knee, Jack Carroll, Jack Haskell

Contains: HELLO DOLLY! (Ribbons Down My Back; Put On Your Sunday Clothes; It Only Takes A Moment; Dancing; A Penny In My Pocket; Hello, Dolly!); GIGI (I Remember It Well; Gigi; She Is Not Thinking Of Me; The Parisians; Thank Heaven For Little Girls; I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore; Say A Prayer For Me Tonight; The Night They Invented Champagne); HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (How To Succeed In Business; Paris Original; Brotherhood Of Man; Happy To Keep His Dinner Warm; Love From A Heart Of Gold; I Believe In You; Grand Old Ivy)
 
Volume 2:
Singers: Rose Marie Jun, Fran Caroll, Jack Carroll, Steve Clayton, Kenny Karen, Bernie Knee, Leslie Miller, Burt Bacharach

Contains: PROMISES, PROMISES (Promises, Promises; What Am I Doing Here?; Upstairs; You'll Think Of Someone; She Likes Basketball; Let's Pretend We're Grown Up; Wanting Things; Tick Tock Goes The Clock; Whoever You Are, I Love You; Christmas Day); FLOWER DRUM SONG (Love, Look Away; I Enjoy Being A Girl; She Is Beautiful; Sunday; Like A God; Grant Avenue; My Best Love; Sunday [piano solo by Richard Rodgers]); LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (La Cage Aux Folles; Song On The Sand; I Am What I Am; The Best Of Times)
[Volumes I and 2 are available separately]
 
It is a minor miracle that these recordings have survived. Thanks are due to Rose Marie Jun, a name that meant absolutely nothing to me until a few weeks ago. An American session singer, Rose Marie made a minor profession of putting down the very first demonstration recordings of a formidable list of Broadway musicals. What is more, she diligently kept detailed notes of recording dates, lists of numbers recorded, and studio personnel. For each of the two welcome discs reviewed here other singers charged with 'auditioning' these songs for more famous singers joined her. The unexpected pleasure is that it quickly becomes apparent that these are far more than merely competent 'cover' versions (although it does contain some of these too).
 
These discs also make you aware of how particular a craft was this 'straight' performance of show songs. The performers had to immediately reach the essence of the song without over-colouring or over-characterisation. It is almost as if they needed to attain blandness. The singers had to be quick studies (there was no room for star temperament) and were usually paid around $20 for each number. The recordings were then made available to popular singers who might thus be persuaded to record their own versions. The demonstration session was, according to the accompanying notes 'crucial, for if successful, it will help the musical to sail onto Broadway in a wave of popularity or, if it is a dud, the show will close on Saturday night and sink into oblivion…'
 
From the first disc, the Hello, Dolly! sequence is the one to which I shall probably return most often. Its delights are many, and give us the first opportunity to hear the unassuming Rose Marie giving a straight-down-the-line edition of 'Ribbons Down My Back'. It is good, too, to have Bernie Knee singing the happy-go-lucky 'A Penny In My Pocket', cut from the show. Here and there, Jerry Herman's much-loved score sounds like a singsong in the snug bar at the Pig and Whistle, and 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' emerges as strangely depressing, reminiscent of the dreaded radio programme Sing Something Simple. Best of the Hello, Dolly! items is an unknown male singer's version of 'It Only Takes A Moment'. The Gigi sequence will entrance anyone who loves that score (I don't think I do), and the little orchestra makes some magical sounds. Making a demo of Frank Loesser's heavily satiric How To Succeed can't have been simple, for this is stuff that needs to be over-performed. The gallant demo singers tackle it manfully, but without being heavily pointed these numbers sound strangely blank.
 
Anyway, if your budget will only stretch to one of these two discs, go for Disc Two. There are four songs from La Cage Aux Folles, probably the least wonderful of the three scores heard here, although there is something warm about hearing a more mature Rose Marie (the La Cage tracks were laid down in 1983, by far the latest recording date of the selections) helping to whip up a party atmosphere for 'The Best Of Times'. There is much to enjoy, too, in the songs from Flower Drum Song, although one can understand why one of the numbers heard here, 'My Best Love', was cut before the show got to Broadway: it's weak. It is interesting, too, to have Richard Rodgers at the piano going through 'Sunday', with a foursquare manner of playing that somehow comes as no surprise.
 
Saving the best to the last, there is the demonstration recording of Promises, Promises, recorded in June 1968, six months before the show opened in New York. Here, the two principal performers (Rose Marie and Kenny Karen) seem to have been inspired by the fact that they were singing to the piano accompaniment of the show's composer Burt Bacharach. Of the ten songs they recorded at the sessions, three had vanished before Promises, Promises unveiled on stage, including 'What Am I Doing Here?', given an interpretation by Rose Marie that will set the nerve ends tingling. It is almost as if, for this once, she abandoned the need to stand back from too personal an interpretation of the songs she had been given, and the result is a performance to be cherished. She pours her heart into it. She also brings to the heart-stopping 'Whoever You Are, I Love You' an intensity that makes one long to hear more from her.
 
The glories are not all Rose Marie's. The set is helped enormously by the presence of Kenny Karen, of whom until a few weeks ago I also had never heard. All I can say is that he has the sexiest voice I have ever heard, and he can sing wonderfully well too. His performance beats hands down the ones delivered by the male members of the original Broadway cast. I defy you not to be moved by his singing of 'Wanting Things', and he kicks his other numbers into touch with huge aplomb. Bacharach's presence at the piano (and does he know how to play it) gives the whole thing an authenticity that becomes even more exciting when, rather tonelessly, he gives some unexpected vocal backing to his singers. The atmosphere throughout is electric.

As a celebration of unsung talents this is an occasion not to be missed, and the sound quality is very good. In fact, it often has a directness that comes across with eerie reality, and helps to earn these recordings a deserved place in any gramophone library. Very highly recommended.

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