Kritzerland is proud to present three new releases – one world premiere soundtrack release, a new Ben Bagley reissue, and a historic archival release of an opera/musical theatre masterpiece:
BEN BAGLEY’S HAROLD ARLEN REVISITED
Music by Harold Arlen
Lyrics by Ralph Blane, DeSylva, Henderson, and Brown, Dorothy Fields, Ira Gershwin, E.Y. Harburg, Ted Koehler, Bud McCreery, Johnny Mercer, and Jack Yellin
Ben Bagley’s Harold Arlen Revisited is another delightful entry in the Revisited series. Back when these Revisited LPs came out they were like an oasis in the desert. Even when they were issued on CD, these were still frequently the only recordings of certain songs.
Hyman Arluck aka Harold Arlen was one-of-a-kind, a completely unique composer whose musical language was melodic, trenchant, heartfelt, fun, bluesy – he really could do anything well, but when you hear an Arlen tune you know it’s an Arlen tune. The breadth of his catalog is simply amazing – “Blues in the Night,” “My Shining Hour,” “Accentuate the Positive,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Any Place I Hang My Hat is Home,” “Happiness is a Thing Called Joe,” “I’ve Got the World On a String,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road),” “Right as the Rain,” “That Old Black Magic,” “The Man that Got Away,” Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” and on and on and on. He wrote for Broadway and films and wrote the score for one of the most beloved movies of all time, The Wizard of Oz and won an Oscar for “Over the Rainbow,” one of the most performed songs ever.
As with all of Bagley’s Revisited series, you won’t be hearing the hits, the classics – you’ll be hearing the more obscure Arlen, which is the fun of these albums. But though they may not be the hits, they’re still great – filled with Arlen’s glorious tunes and of course the lyrics are by some of the best. The usual assortment of Bagley’s regular performers are here, including Phyllis Diller, Estelle Parsons, David Burns, Nancy Andrews, Gloria DeHaven, Blossom Dearie and others. And you couldn’t really as for better than Ralph Burns and Dick Hyman for arrangers and musical direction.
As we’ve done with the other albums in this series, we have considerably spruced up the sound. For the CD release, Bagley went into the studio and recorded bonus material to fill out the CD length.
HAROLD ARLEN REVISITED is limited to 500 copies only and priced at $19.98, plus shipping. CDs will ship by the second week of September, but never fear, we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
PORGY AND BESS
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward
Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on October 10, 1935, receiving decidedly mixed reviews and playing a disappointing 124 performances. Subsequent to its brief Broadway run, there was a short tour, then two years later a West Coast production with much of the same cast. There was a Broadway revival in 1942, drastically cut and played more in the style of musical theatre. That run lasted 286 performances. That same year, the European premiere took place at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen.
In 1952, there was another touring version, this one restoring many of the cuts done for the 1942 revival, putting the opera in two acts, and played more as an opera than musical theatre. In that tour was William Warfield as Porgy, Leontyne Price as Bess, and Cab Calloway as Sportin’ Life, and once again the conductor is Alexander Smallens. A tour of Europe was financed by the US State Department, which was warmly received and which is what you’ll be hearing in this historic performance, originally broadcast on radio in Berlin live from the Titania Palast on September 21, 1952.
This CD is derived from a tape of the broadcast from Berlin. Our brilliant mastering and restoration engineer, Chris Malone, has done great work in cleaning it up and making it sound as good as it’s ever going to. The cast is superb, especially William Warfield and Leontyne Price, who is a glorious Bess. And Cab Calloway is sublime as Sportin’ Life – but the entire company is tops and the conducting of original conductor Alexander Smallens is great. It’s an exhilarating performance.
Porgy and Bess has had its share of troubles over the years, but it endures because it is clearly a masterpiece – and because of its timeless music, which is, all these decades later, still refreshing, vital, and as tuneful as an opera has ever been. We’re pleased to have this historic performance in better sound and we hope you will be, too.
PORGY AND BESS is limited to 500 copies only and the two-CD set is priced at $19.98, plus shipping. CDs will ship by the second week of September, but never fear, we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere soundtrack release – two great scores on one CD:
RED
and
FAMILY
COMPOSED AND CONDUCTED BY SOREN HYLDGAARD
The world lost a wonderful person and hugely talented film composer on May 7, 2018. If it was not a name you knew, it was a name you should have known. But sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw. Some film composers do great work without ever getting to the next level, and some do lesser work while climbing straight up the ladder. There’s no predicting it – it’s got a lot to do with luck and timing and lots of other things that seem to be at the whim of the great out there.
He began scoring films and TV in 1990 and his talent was immediately evident to those who heard his scores back then. He had a great gift for melody and even more importantly the gift of understanding how music should function in film. His first American film was Red, starring Brian Cox, which opens this CD. Red was a fairly low-budget film, a revenge thriller, and a very good one. The Los Angeles Times called the film, “An elegant and deceptively straightforward dramatic thriller.” Hyldgaard’s score is extremely evocative, mournful and quite beautiful, filled with the colors of rural America, and never overplaying its hand or overstaying its welcome.
The second score is to the powerful 2001 Danish documentary, Family. The filmmakers could not have chosen a better composer for their film. Once again, Hyldgaard turns in a beautiful score, with gorgeous themes, underscoring all the emotions of the film exquisitely.
RED/FAMILY is limited to 500 copies only and priced at $19.98, plus shipping. CDs will ship by the second week of September, but never fear, we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
SPECIAL OFFER: PURCHASE RED AND GET SOREN HYLDGAARD’S BRILLIANT SCORE TO THE SPIDER FOR FREE. TWO FOR ONE.
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