Description
AND THE WORLD GOES ROUND
The Songs of Kander and Ebb
World Premiere Recording of the complete show!
They met in 1962. They had their first Broadway show in 1965 and their first Broadway smash hit in 1966. They currently have the longest running revival in history still on Broadway, packing in the crowds. They were one of the most amazing musical theatre songwriting teams in history – they were simply known as Kander & Ebb.
Back in 1991, a bunch of talented artists came together to create a musical revue based on the songs of Kander & Ebb. They were director Scott Ellis, choreographer Susan Stroman and writer David Thompson. With musical director, David Loud, they created what the New York Times called “An unexpected delight: A handsome, tasteful, snazzily staged outpouring of song and dance that celebrates all the virtues of the Kander-Ebb catalogue, while scrupulously avoiding most of the cloying clichés of and-then-I-wrote anthologies.”
Audiences flocked to the show, which opened on March 18, 1991 at the newly renovated Westside Arts Theatre, where it played for 408 performances. After closing, the show had a ten-month national tour. It won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revue. The show has been steadily produced all over the world ever since. The original 1991 RCA cast album was a truncated version of the show on one CD. It was missing quite a bit of material and it also had expanded orchestrations done especially for that recording. For this brand new recording, we used the show’s original orchestrations and this new 2-CD set is a complete version of the entire show from start to finish. As a bonus, we’ve also included the various playoffs for certain songs.
This new studio cast recording features a stellar and brilliant cast: Brent Barrett, Kyra Da Costa, Jason Graae, Christiane Noll and Kristin Towers-Rowles. Musical direction is by Joshua Eli Kranz, and the album is produced by Bruce Kimmel.
And The World Goes Round – this 2-CD set is specially priced at $23.98, plus shipping.
CDs will ship by the third week of October, but we’ve been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date.
CD 1
And the World Goes Round – Kyra Da Costa
Yes – Company
Coffee in a Cardboard Cup – Company
The Happy Time – Joshua Eli Kranz
Colored Lights – Christiane Noll
Sara Lee – Jason Graae and Company
Arthur in the Afternoon – Kristin Towers-Rowles
Crossover#1 – Christiane Noll
My Coloring Book – Kyra Da Costa
I Don’t Remember You/Sometimes a Day Goes By – Brent Barrett, Joshua Eli Kranz
And All That Jazz – Christiane Noll, Joshua Eli Kranz and Company
Class – Kyra Da Costa, Christiane Noll
Mr. Cellophane – Jason Graae
Me and My Baby – Company
There Goes the Ballgame – Christiane Noll, Kyra Da Costa, Kristin Towers-Rowles
How Lucky Can You Get? – Christiane Noll and Company
The Rink – Jason Graae, Brent Barrett and Company
CD 2
Entr’acte – Band
Ring Them Bells – Christiane Noll and Company
Kiss of the Spiderwoman – Brent Barrett
Only Love – Kyra Da Costa and Jason Graae
Marry Me – Jason Graae
A Quiet Thing – Kristin Towers-Rowles
Shoes Dance – Band
Pain – Company
The Grass Is Always Greener/The Grass Is Always Greener (reprise) – Christiane Noll, Kyra Da Costa
Crossover #2 – Joshua Eli Kranz
We Can Make It/Maybe This Time/Isn’t It Better? – Brent Barrett, Kyra Da Costa, Kristin Towers-Rowles
Crossover #3 – Kristin Towers-Rowles
Money, Money – Company
Cabaret – Company
New York, New York – Company
And the World Goes Round Finale – Company
New York New York Bows – Band
Bonus Tracks
The Play-offs
And All That Jazz – Band
Me and My Baby – Band
Ring Them Bells – Band
Shoes Dance Tag – Band
Pain – Band
Money, Money – Band
Complete Liner Notes by Bruce Kimmel:
They met in 1962. They had their first
Broadway show in 1965 and their
first Broadway smash hit in 1966. They
currently have the longest running revival
in history still on Broadway, packing
in the crowds. They were one of the
most amazing musical theatre songwriting
teams in history – they were simply
known as Kander & Ebb.
Two of their shows are amongst the
most iconic in musical theatre history –
Cabaret and Chicago, both at the time of
this writing, currently playing on Broadway.
The musical theatre of the last
fifty years would be unthinkable without
their contribution, and the amazing fact
is that after the sad passing of Fred
Ebb in 2004, the team has still had the
new musicals that they’d pretty much
completed – Curtains, The Scottsboro
Boys and The Visit – produced both on
Broadway and regionally, a pretty astonishing
feat.
Back in 1991, a bunch of talented artists
came together to create a musical
revue based on the songs of Kander
& Ebb. They were director Scott Ellis,
choreographer Susan Stroman and
writer David Thompson, all of whom
would go on to work with Kander & Ebb
on Steel Pier some years later. With
musical director, David Loud, they created
what the New York Times called
“An unexpected delight: A handsome,
tasteful, snazzily staged outpouring of
song and dance that celebrates all the
virtues of the Kander-Ebb catalogue,
while scrupulously avoiding most of the
cloying clichés of and-then-I-wrote anthologies.”
Audiences flocked to the show, which
opened on March 18, 1991 at the newly
renovated Westside Arts Theatre,
where it played for 408 performances.
After closing, the show had a ten-month
national tour. It won the Lucille Lortel
Award for Outstanding Musical and the
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Musical Revue. The show had a cast
recording on RCA, and it has been
steadily produced all over the world
ever since.
In 2013 I received a call from my pal
Michael Sterling – he’d been talking
with up-and-coming musical director
Joshua Eli Kranz and the producers of
a production of the show that had received
glowing reviews at a tiny theater
in North Hollywood. Michael had set up
a radio interview with John Kander as a
surprise to Joshua and during that interview
the idea of doing a new recording
was broached by Joshua. Michael then
suggested they speak to me to see if I
was interested in doing a new recording
of the complete show. I’d seen the show
off-Broadway right after it had opened
and enjoyed it very much, and the teeny-
tiny production had its pleasures,
too. I was asked if I’d be interested in
recording the show. Normally, if there’s
been a good cast album I’m rarely interested
unless I feel I can bring something
new to the table, recording-wise,
or if the cast brings a whole new and
fresh outlook to a piece. Since the original
album was not complete and a lot
of the great arrangements and songs as
they are done in the revue had not been
recorded, the idea did interest me, but
not to do that particular production, as
I wanted to use the show’s original orchestrations
(that production used only
piano and drums) and I wanted to bring
in a stellar cast if we were really going
to record the entire show for the first
time. Also, the original cast album had
had its orchestra enhanced for the recording,
but I thought it would be great
to record the show’s original orchestrations
as they were written and as they’d
been done off-Broadway.
So, I called my friend Paul McKibbins,
who runs the Kander & Ebb publishing
arm, and he thought it was a really
great idea, and then John Kander and
I conversed about it and he, too was all
for it. I’d recorded a lot of their songs
over the years, plus had done a critically
acclaimed all Kander & Ebb album
with Brent Barrett as well as jazz cover
albums of Chicago and Cabaret, with
Brad Ellis and his Little Big Band. in
fact, I’d first met and worked with John
when I recorded some classical art
songs he’d written, for an album called
Classical Broadway.
The show’s producers asked if I would
keep one member of the cast of their
production, and since I’d liked her in the
show, I agreed. In casting three of the
other roles, I simply turned to three of
the best performers I knew and that I’d
worked with many, many times – Brent
Barrett, Jason Graae and Christiane
Noll. Happily, all of them loved the idea
of doing it and signed on. It was especially
nice getting Brent, who’d done
the workshop of And the World Goes
Round, and, of course, our Kander
& Ebb album and who’d performed in
the Chicago revival as Billy Flynn longer
than any other actor. I wasn’t at all
sure who the fifth cast member would
be, but then by happy happenstance
the show’s musical director, Joshua
Eli Kranz, and I saw a production of
Smokey Joe’s Café at the Pasadena
Playhouse. A powerhouse lady came
out, opened her mouth, and after four
notes I knew we’d found our final cast
member – Kyra Da Costa.
We finally got everyone’s schedules
worked out and went into the studio in
February of 2014. Hearing these singers
sing these incredible songs, with
each making each number their own,
was nothing but pleasure, and being
able to record the entire show – every
note – was fantastic.
We hope you’ll enjoy this recording as
much as we did making it. Even though
it’s a studio cast recording, we tried to
instill in it a theatricality and life so that it
would be the aural equivalent of seeing
a great production of the show. –Bruce Kimmel
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.