HUGH MARTIN THE MARTINS; NORMAN; BLANE; GREY; CAMPBELL; MAXWELL; MANETTO; JOHNSON; WERENER; HANLEY; ROBERTSON; LANGE HIDDEN TREASURES: SONGS OF STAGE & SCREEN 1941-2010- THE THREE B'S; EV'RY TIME; WISH I MAY; GOTTA DANCE; SUITS ME FINE; IMAGINE; I LIKE THE FEELING; ETC.

This album is a retrospective that is a must-have for all lovers of musical theater. Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt first won fame as the creators of The Fantasticks- the longest-running musical in the history of the world, with more than 21,000 performances given in New York over a period of 58 years. But the Jones & Schmidt musicals also include Broadway classics such as "I Do! I Do!," "110 in the Shade," and "Celebration." Selections from these and 12 other shows are included in this deluxe release, which features many previously unreleased "demos" by the songwriters themselves. Jones & Schmidt worked closely with Producer Bill Rudman for over two years to ensure that this album would best represent their legacy. "The purpose of theater is always to reveal us to ourselves. To help us perceive the 'poetry' beneath the prose and the minutiae of our lives. To make us exalt. To make us feel. And not least of all, to make us laugh." (Tom Jones)

Recorded live in London, the pianist and singer, Steve Ross, brings his considerable gifts and affinity for songs from the Great American Songbook to a selection of Stephen Sondheim classics.

For the first time ever, a glimpse behind the scenes at the birth of a new musical comedy. Before the show could begin, production money for the budget had to be raised. And here is a unique opportunity to hear an actual backers’ audition in a fashionable East Side New York apartment with the actual songwriters performing the score. And as an added bonus, several songs were subsequently cut from the score and appear here for the first time in any medium. The extensive liner notes are written by Coleman biographer Andy Propst. Cy Coleman already could boast of hit Broadway shows such as Little Me, Seesaw, I Love My Wife and On the Twentieth Century. After the great success of Barnum, he would write the scores for the Tony Award-winning Will Rogers Follies, The Life, and others. Michael Stewart is best known for his masterful work on the libretto of Hello, Dolly! He had begun his Broadway lyric-writing career along with Cy Coleman on the hit show I Love My Wife. The two writers teamed up for their greatest success as a team, Barnum. Listening to this rare, historic recording, imagine yourself sitting in a lavish apartment plied with drinks and hors d’oeuvres and entertained by this marvelous score. Would you have invested in the show? Barnum eventually ran at the St. James Theatre for over 800 performances. It spawned a successful London production and countless regional and amateur productions since its opening night on April 30, 1980.

MUSICAL - CHARLES STROUSE AND LEE ADAMS Performed by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams. ALL AMERICAN - Live Backers Audition.

This is the extraordinary recording debut of jazz phenomenon Anaïs Reno, who made it in 2020 at the age of 16. Reno has already won accolades for her dedication to the Great American Songbook. She recently received the Julie Wilson Award, and in 2019 won the Mabel Mercer Foundation competition for high school students. For this album she has chosen 12 tunes by two master writers: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and Billy Strayhorn 1915-67), creators of some of the most challenging and sophisticated material in the Great American Songbook. Reno combines beloved hits such as "Mood Indigo," "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life" and "Caravan" with lesser-known but equally memorable tunes like "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing" and "It's Kind of Lonesome Out Tonight," all backed by a stellar group of jazz musicians led by pianist Emmet Cohen, who also did the arrangements with Reno. "I have a very personal relationship with these songs," says Reno. "Somehow I believe that the music of Ellington & Strayhorn understands me. This is why I want to honor it." Acclaimed jazz historian Will Friedwald, who has written the liner notes for the 12-page booklet, comments that "At 16, Anaïs achieved what precious few adults ever accomplish: namely, to actually enhance our appreciation and enjoyment of the Ellington-Strayhorn canon. Whether working together or separately, the two of them were always on the same page, both metaphorically and literally. And now, so is Anaïs Reno."

Before he was a noted composer of such shows as Little Me, Sweet Charity, Barnum and On the Twentieth Century, Cy Coleman was the favorite of the New York cabaret and supper club scene. Now, for the first time, Cy and his fellow musicians play the scores of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg’s hit show Jamaica in addition to songs from the Rodgers and Hammerstein hits Flower Drum Song and South Pacific. The works from the latter production have been taken from rare transcription recordings, and are making their first debuts since being recorded in the early 1950s. While listening to this jazzy album, think of yourself sipping a Manhattan cocktail or a martini at the Shelburne or Park Sheraton hotels’ club while Cy Coleman and his fellow musicians regale you with a bevy of Broadway blockbuster tunes. It’s ‘50s jazz at its finest.

The 1921 musical comedy, Shuffle Along, was a soaringly successful Broadway show. Contained inside this show are songs that would eventually become staples in the repertoire, such as “I’m Just Wild About Harry” and “Love Will Find A Way.” This musical also served a civil purpose. As an all black musical, the show desegregated theaters all across the country. This album is being release alongside the April 2016 revival of the show, and features Tony Award-winning stars such as Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald.

REVIEWS:

This fascinating release combines original recordings made in the acoustic era by members of the Shuffle Along company in conjunction with later performances, primarily by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, who wrote all the music and lyrics. It is, of course, by no means perfect, but it is representative of what was considered a landmark show in the history of black theater and the first “jazz” musical to hit Broadway...

Singer and lyricist Sissle was originally a drum major and vocalist for Lieutenant Jim Europe’s “Hellfighters” 369th Infantry Band in World War I...not even the Original Dixieland Jazz Band had yet made an appearance in New York. To them, jazz was what we now call “hot ragtime.”

Nevertheless, Shuffle Along remains a vitally important historical moment in the history of black entertainment. It was the first all-black show to have a wide appeal to white audiences, first gaining attention at the Howard Theatre in Washington for two weeks, then moving to the 63rd Street Theater in New York City in May before racking up 504 performances(!) at the Cort Theater on 48th Street. The cast included several names that would become famous over the next few years such as Adelaide Hall, Florence Mills (who replaced Gertrude Saunders after the first year), Fredi Washington and Paul Robeson—none of whom recorded anything from the show!—and a very young Josephine Baker in the chorus line.

-- The Art Music Lounge

Sylvia McNair has won two Grammy Awards, and is today’s leading interpreter of American Popular Song. After a thriving opera career, she recorded several albums, including her award winning albums with pianist Andre Previn. This programme includes a mix of new and old standards, such as Orange Colored Sky, Love Is In The Air, Summertime, and One Hundred Easy Ways. Jazz musicians Ted Taylor, Jeremy Allen, and Steve Houghton accompany McNair for this recording.

Harbinger Records is pleased to announce their premiere film release. And for this prestigious debut, they have chosen to present a live recording of the estimable Sidney Myer at the Laura Beechman Theatre in New York. Known for his witty musical comedy, Sidney delivers numbers that are understated and even heartbreaking. Disarming, funny, preposterous, touching, and utterly unique, Myer is one of the country’s leading cabaret performers. He’s performed around the world, making New York his base. He has won numerous awards for his incomparable choice of material, delivery, and wit. For the past 25 years, despite urging from admirers, Sidney limited his brilliance to cameos at clubs, benefits and conventions. But for this, Sidney sold out six one-man shows emphasizing his wide range of material and thrilled his audiences. The result is an utterly marvelous record of a uniquely versatile performer that will thrill aficionados of musical comedy, cabaret, popular song and standup comedy. There’s something for everyone in this record of a master showman at the top of his game.

Recorded in 1964. Includes liner notes by Stephen Cole.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.

For the first time on album, the Smithsonian Institution’s 1981 first complete recording of Victor Herbert’s classic musical, Naughty Marietta, is available through Harbinger Records. This is the most complete recorded performance of the original score of a Victor Herbert operetta. It provides the listener with an opportunity to hear this brilliant score as if complete for the first time. The recording began as a concert at the Smithsonian Institution in 1981. The reception was so great, the company went right into the studio and recorded the 2-LP set under the direction of the Division of Performing Arts’ Director, James R. Morris. A young Judy Blazer played Marietta, an early step toward her becoming a Broadway star. Naughty Marietta is Herbert’s best and most popular score and became a key bridge between the English, French and Viennese operettas popular in the late 19th-century and the thoroughly American style of entertainment that dominated our musical stages after 1920. Herbert’s collaborator on the project was Rida Johnson Young, who supplied the libretto and the lyrics. She was the first significant lyricist of the 20th-century American musical theater. Her best work transforms the florid language of European operettas into colloquial speech. She wrote plays, acted, and wrote the standard, “Mother Machree” for the show Barry of Ballymore. She wrote the lyrics for over 500 songs including works by Jerome Kern, Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml, all giants in the world of musical theater. Naughty Marietta has become a staple of light opera companies throughout the world. After the Broadway engagement the show toured the United States to rave reviews and sold-out houses. Nearly two decades later the show returned to Broadway to great acclaim.

Another in Harbinger Records’ acclaimed series of Broadway Backers’ Auditions, I Love My Wife Backers’ Audition is a swinging romp about swinging singles with an equally swinging score by Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart. And it’s those songwriters who play the score and narrate the story. Singing duties are also shared by Broadway legend Laurie Beechman and Broadway mainstay Austin Pendleton. This merry quartet has a ball and so will the listeners.

The recording was made to send out to potential backers to entice them to invest in the show. Those who did found this intimate show (the musicians also played parts in the piece) to be a sleeper hit. It opened at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre on April 17, 1977 and entranced the critics. New York Times critic Clive Barnes enthused that the show was “bright, inventive, amusing and breezy.” It ended up playing a remarkable 857 performances.

Our recording also features bonus tracks from two other Cy Coleman shows, Atlantic City, with lyrics by Christopher Gore, and Home Again, with lyrics by Barbara Fried. The five songs excerpted from their demo recordings suggest the range of Coleman’s output in the 1970s.

And for I Love My Wife, informative liner notes by Coleman biographer Andy Propst explain it all. How two couples from the suburbs of Trenton, New Jersey, spend a rollicking Christmas Eve. These friends, with a little help of strong eggnog and other libations (some smoked), decide to explore a ménage-à-quatre. They make it as far as the bed when…Well, we’ll let Mr. Coleman and Mr. Stewart tell you the story. The songs, the story and the enthusiastic creators make this CD a joy to listen to. The 12-page booklet also contains photos from the original Broadway production.

I Love My Wife Backers’ Audition makes for a joyful listening experience and a bit of nostalgia for people of a certain age. A huge hit on Broadway, a rousing score, narration by the creators and performances of two of Broadway’s finest talents. What more could one hope for in today’s parlous times?

Harbinger Records is proud to present its second partnership with the Smithsonian: the first release in any format of their 1981 production of the classic operetta Rose-Marie (1924), starring Broadway’s Ron Raines. It is the only complete recording of the score, which includes lyrics by the 29-year-old Oscar Hammerstein, more than 20 years before he began his collaboration with Richard Rodgers. Rose-Marie was the first American musical with a Canadian locale—the Canadian Rockies, to be precise—and includes such evergreens at “Indian Love Call” (“When I’m calling you, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo”), “Pretty Things,” “Only a Kiss” and the stirring title song. Broadway audiences flocked to Rose-Marie for 557 performances, making it the fourth longest-running musical of the 1920s. A must for collectors and all fans of both the American musical and classical music, Rose-Marie has been packaged in a deluxe set with historic production photos and notes by two longtime Harbinger colleagues: co-producer Dwight Blocker Bowers, curator emeritus of the Smithsonian, and Ted Chapin, recently retired president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. Says Bowers: “It’s not an overstatement to claim that Rose-Marie was the first American musical theater work to achieve wide international success. In his review of the original production, Arthur Hornblow in Theatre magazine praised it for being ‘head, shoulders and waist above the customary dribble.’ When the Smithsonian’s recordings program was suspended, the unreleased Rose-Marie was a casualty, and I was given the chance to rescue the master tapes. Hence the collaboration with Harbinger, whose slogan is apt: Albums for the discerning collector.”