Notes and Editorial Reviews
Could SWEET BYE AND BYE be the greatest theatre score no one’s ever heard? It certainly boasts an amazing pedigree: music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by Ogden Nash, a book by S. J. Perelman and Al Hirschfeld. It crashed and burned during its pre-Broadway tryout in 1946 for various reasons -- some conceptual, some creative, some casting-related -- but at the end of the day what’s left is a glorious collection of songs: restlessly inventive, playful and romantic -- perhaps Vernon Duke’s finest theatrical achievement. A futuristic farce sending up big business, telecommunications, robotics, space travel, self-help groups and even the traditions of courtship and matrimony, at heart SWEET BYE AND BYE is a simple love story with some of the most
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beautiful ballads Broadway had ever heard. The world premiere recording of this Broadway-musical-that-never-was has been lovingly restored from Duke and Nash’s original manuscripts by producer Tommy Krasker and orchestrator Jason Carr. With conductor Eric Stern leading the orchestra, and featuring a cast of Broadway and recording veterans -- including Danny Burstein, Philip Chaffin, Jim Stanek, Heidi Blickenstaff, Graham Rowat, Michele Ragusa, Telly Leung, Sara Jean Ford and, in the starring role originated by Dolores Gray, Marin Mazzie (with guest appearances by Fred Applegate, John Cullum, Georgia Engel, Joel Hatch, Edward Hibbert and Rebecca Luker) -- SWEET BYE AND BYE is perhaps the ultimate jewel in the crown of PS Classics’ forgotten musicals series.
"It's a ball! Danny Burstein is amusingly all bluster and bellowing as a big business bigwig who's easily frustrated, full of himself and full of baloney. His satisfying showpiece of self-satisfaction and self-aggrandizement, 'Ham That I Am,' is a buoyant tour de force. He's a high-energy hoot as he tries to play his cards right with a simple, shy, bewildered tree surgeon named Solomon who inherits a fortune and controlling interest in the company. Solomon is played and sung cannily by Philip Chaffin, who doubles as co-head of PS Classics and one of its leading vocal lights on their studio cast albums and his solo CDs. He brings a nerdy naïf's fish-out-of-water wonder to the role in the early sections, making what could be just a cartoony lost soul surprisingly soulful. His 'Round About' has great range, with tenderness, frustration and an explosion of rage. Marin Mazzie struts with splash in the brash 'Diana,' selling herself confidently as the person ready, willing, and super-able to polish Solomon into a hard-nosed corporate sharpie. -- Rob Lester, Talkin' Broadway
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Works on This Recording
1.
Sweet Bye and Bye, musical by Vernon Duke
Performer:
Joel Hatch (Voice),
Edward Hibbert (Voice),
Sara Jean Ford (Voice),
Michele Ragusa (Voice),
Heidi Blickenstaff (Voice),
Danny Burstein (Voice),
Marin Mazzie (Voice),
John Cullum (Voice),
Philip Chaffin (Voice),
Jim Stanek (Voice),
Graham Rowat (Voice),
Telly Leung (Voice),
Rebecca Luker (Voice),
Georgia Engel (Voice),
Fred Applegate (Voice)
Conductor:
Eric Stern
Period: Modern
Length: 1 Minutes 32 Secs.
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