On The Town (1995 Studio Cast) [CAST RECORDING] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Leonard Bernstein (Composer, Conductor), National Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), David Frith (Performer), David Green (Performer), Ethan Freeman (Performer), Gregg Edelman (Performer), Judy Kaye (Performer), Kim Criswell (Performer), Louise Gold (Performer), Matt Zimmerman (Performer), Michael Bauer (Performer), Nicolas Colicos (Performer), Richard Mitchell (Performer), Robert Fardell (Performer), Simon Masterton-Smith (Performer), Tim Flavin (Performer), Tinuke Olafimihan (Performer), Valerie Masterson (Performer), Betty Comden (Artist), Adolph Green (Artist)

Product Details

• Performer: David Frith, David Green, Ethan Freeman, Gregg Edelman, Judy Kaye, et al.
• Orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Leonard Bernstein
• Composer: Leonard Bernstein
• Audio CD (October 29, 1996)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Cast Recording, Original recording remastered
• Label: Jay Records
• ASIN: B000005BGI
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,363 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
With a fluid integration of drama, comedy, jazz, classical and popular ballads, "On the Town" stands as one of the great innovative works in the history of musical theatre.

Bringing the recording up-to-date with the best that modern recording has to offer, producer John Yap has used the original orchestrations with a full symphony orchestra and an all-star cast drawn from stage, screen and television - including Kim Criswell, Judy Kaye, Gregg Edelman, Tim Flavin, Ethan Freeman, Valerie Masterson and Tinuke Olafimihan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A poor imitation of the original recording, December 31, 1999

By	"path31783" (NJ) - See all my reviews

Most people know On the Town only from the extremely silly movie version, which eliminated virtually all of Leonard Bernstein's amazing work (Harold Clurman, of all people, said that Bernstein's score "IS music.") These people do not know what they are missing - there are few musicals in the annals of the theater with better scores than this one. And this is NOT the CD to buy if you want to hear it. Every song is in some way mishandled, with poor acting, far-too-slow tempos, and annoying vamps. If you really want to hear this score, get the one made with (most of) the original cast; Comden and Green, the fantastic Nancy Walker (a show all by herself), and the whole company are wonderful, as is the music - you actually feel the excitement intended! This recording was utterly pointless; such studio albums should only be done of shows with flawed or absent originals, and not mislead people into thinking that truly great recordings somehow weren't good enough.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb recording of this great score, April 13, 2000

By A Customer

"On the Town" has one of the greatest scores of any American musical. Of the three currently available, this can stand on an equal level with the great 1960 recording conducted by Bernstein and featuring most of the original principals, and a bit ahead of the Michael Tilson Thomas recording. This recording does suffer a bit from the fact that most of the singers have never played their roles on stage, but they are all such good theatre singers that they make up for it. And although occasionally John Owen Edwards's tempi choices are just too slow, for the most part his slowish tempi pay off. The ballet music, in particular, has perhaps never been recorded so powerfully. This recording captures the sadness underlying the piece far more than the other recordings do. The Bernstein recording may be first choice in many ways, but in the end I have to say I like this one rather more. And it's nice to have every bit of music that was included in the original production, especially the beautiful entr'acte, although the Tilson Thomas recording contains more of the music that was cut from the original production than this recording does.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars IT MAY BE "COMPLETE," BUT . . . . . , July 18, 2006

By	J. T Waldmann "yaakov98" (Carmel, IN, located just north of Indianapolis in Hamilton County.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First off: There should be a special award for John Yap, Executive Producer of Jay Productions LTD for giving us "complete" recordings of classic Broadway musicals. Before the advent of the compact disc, musical scores had to be truncated to fit the time constraints of a double-sided LP record. (Record companies believed, and possibly correctly, that record buyers would reject a recording that stretched over four sides.) And prior to the LP, original cast recordings were often limited to 8 or 10 tracks.

All this by way of saying how grateful I am to have all of Bernstein's wonderful score, including dance & incidental music, included on this recording, and, along with Sony's 1960 studio recording, consider it an essential recording.

But it's the 1960 recording that I will keep returning to, even though I admire both Kim Criswell (a fine Reno Sweeney on EMI Classic's ANYTHING GOES) & the incredible Judy Kaye. Their performances just can't measure up to Nancy Walker's "Hildy" & Betty Comden's "Claire DeLoone." And Ethan Freeman pales next to John Reardon's gorgeous, classically-trained dramatic baritone. Having Leonard Bernstein, himself, conducting doesn't hurt either.

Even though I consider this recording essential to your library (okay, at least to my library), I'm sorry that I can't rate it any higher because of the superior, vastly more exiting, Sony recording.

(I'm just beginning to collect the Jay "complete" recordings, and I assure you that some of them are truly fine. Good work, Mr. Yap.)