Customer Reviews

Puttin' on the Ritz: The Great Hollywood Musicals

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Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops have done it again. This is a spectacular collection. It makes you feel like getting dressed up with a lot of glitz and glam and going dancing. Though I must admit that Fredrica Von Stade's rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" will definitely touch your heart.

It must be fun for cabaret singers to go 'uptown' to sing with a symphony orchestra. Likewise, for opera singers to go 'slumming' in pop musice might also have it's pleasures. The issue is, that it rarely works. That is the case here. As an example: I purchased this album on the lure that Frederike von Stade is singing 'Lover' ... one of Richard Rodgers loveliest waltzes ... with sassy lyrics by Lorenz Hart ... a song which has in recent years become the property of belting jazz and scat singers, notably Ella Fitzgerald, who's version is fun ... but it isn't the original intent of the song. Finally, I thought, on this disc there would be a recording of the song as it was originally intended (it was introduced by Jeannette MacDonald in the marvelous film 'Love Me Tonight') but even that song doesn't totally work. I guess we can be grateful it's performed as a waltz but that's about the only nod to the original. Von Stade sings well, as always, so I don't know whether it's the arrangement, the key or what. It really should have worked. After all, von Stade has demonstrated a popular sensibility in recordings such as 'Show Boat'. So the fact that it doesn't work can only be placed at the feet of the arranger. As for the other artists ... the late Jerry Hadley is also not comfortable in the repertoire he's given to sing. I guess the other singers do well enough but it all sounds a little 'over-blown'. Bobby Short, a fine cabaret singer, is not at his best here, being cramped by rigid orchestral arrangements. The other singers have that 'gee look at me! ... with a symphony orchestra!' sound. The chorus sings lustily and is strictly mid-western. Kunzel was a fine crossover music conductor and he does his job keeping things moving. Finally, considering it's on the Telarc label, the sound is nothing to write home about.

I live in SW Florida, and one of the wonderful FM stations I listen to, 101.1, has played over a long period of time "Singin'
in the Rain," which it turns out comes from this Erich Kunzel album, the song sung by Lee Roy Reams. As I couldn't find just that single to download, I bought the album, and I couldn't be more pleased. The late Erich Kunzel spotlights some of the best music from Hollywood's golden age of musicals, featuring the wonderful voices of not only Reams but Leslie Uggams, Bobby Short, Jerry Hadley, Michael Feinstein, Jeremy Davenport and Frederica von Stade. You won't be disappointed in the selections Kunzel decided to spotlight on this album of almost an hour in length. I now have my "Singin' in the Rain," but for the first time ever I've come to realize what a wonderful story is told through Harry Warren's "The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe." These songwriters knew how to use the language to create their enormously memorable music, music that has stood the test of time. I'm of the opinion that the best music has already been written; at my age, I have great, great respect for our American songbook. Its legacy is well represented on this classic Kunzel disc.