Irving Berlin's White
Christmas
Cast Recording
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
Book by David Ives and Paul Blake
Based on the screenplay by Norman Krasna, Norman
Panama and Melvin Frank
Reviewed by
Brad Hathaway |
Issued 2006
Running time 54 minutes over 18 tracks
Packaged with lyrics, synopsis and notes
Eight color photos
Ghostlight Records 7915581225-2
List Price $18.98 |
Click here to buy the CD
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Know anyone who needs another Christmas music CD? Know anyone who needs
another cast recording of a show? (And who doesn't?) Then, how about a
combination, so you buy just one? If you remember the 1954 Bing Crosby,
Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney movie that has been a ubiquitous presence on
television throughout the last two months of every year, you already know
most of the numbers in this bright, tuneful concoction. They, and a few
other well known and/or intriguing Irving Berlin songs, have been assembled
in what sounds from its cast album like a solidly constructed stage musical
comedy. The recording of the score has all of the rhythmic, melodic and
lyrical strengths you would expect from a show that carries the name of
composer/lyricist Irving Berlin in the title. Titling a show with the name
of practically any other songwriter would seem pretentious. But Berlin
is ... well, remember that no less than Jerome Kern, when asked to describe
Berlin's place in American Music, replied "Irving Berlin has no place in
American music. Irving Berlin is American music." If you want to know
why, just listen to this one disc. |
Storyline: The movie's story has been streamlined and concentrated, but
it retains the central story of two song and dance men who put on a show at
a Vermont ski lodge suffering from a lack of both business and snow, in
order to attract crowds to the lodge which is now operated by their old
commanding officer from their World War II service.
The producers of the show have a unique marketing plan. It is every inch a
standard Broadway-type musical, but they aren't taking it to Broadway. They
may doubt it can attract ticket buyers during the warm months, and year round
sales are needed on the Great White Way. So, what to do? Develop a show that
can play in the October - December fiscal quarter at large Broadway-like
touring houses and see if you can make it a tradition, so the costs of sets
and costumes can be spread over multiple years. First off, they opened the
show in San Francisco for the 2004 holidays. Then the show was mounted in
2005 in Los Angeles and Boston in addition to San Francisco. This year it
will be playing in Detroit and St. Paul. (But not Massachusetts or
California.)
Just because the show hasn't come to the Potomac
Region is no reason to miss out on the infectious renditions of the classic
Irving Berlin songs. The recording is a great listen, and features a number
of expansive renditions of Berlin ballads ("How Deep Is The
Ocean") cute up-tempo specialty songs ("Sisters") and big tap production
numbers ("I Love a Piano"). Of course the title song is there too,
which, in Bing Crosby's original, is still thought to have been the largest
selling single recording in history - 125,000,000 copies! It isn't Crosby singing here, it
is Brian d'Arcy James (Titanic, Sweet Smell of Success) who leads off
before the full cast joins in.
The cast includes the chipper voiced Anastasia Barzee
(Urinetown, Jekyll & Hyde) teamed with Meredith Patterson (42nd
Street) as the sisters that d'Arcy James and Jeffry Denman (The Producers)
are courting. The voice that sounds the most at home in the 40s and 50s big
band sound here is that of Karen Morrow, who hasn't been on Broadway since
The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the 1980s. Listening to her belt out "Let
Me Sing And I'm Happy" is a delight.
The big swing orchestra sound behind the vocalists is
so thoroughly in touch with the period of the piece that you might think
these are vintage orchestrations. But, no, they were created for the show by
Bruce Pomahac and Larry Blank. Pomahac, as vocal and dance music arranger,
sprinkles the big dance numbers with tiny filigrees that support dance
figures the way internal rhymes in Berlin's lyrics spice up the vocalist's
performances. Blank strikes a fine balance between the fullness of the
orchestral sound and the sharpness of solo and small combo moments. Music
director Rob Berman gets the orchestra in the big dance numbers to display
the energy in the recording that you look for in a live performance.
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