This Is the Army/Call Me Mister/Winged Victory

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 01:10:52
3 LPs on 1 CD: THIS IS THE ARMY (1942)/CALL ME MISTER (1946)/WINGED VICTORY (1943). THIS IS THE ARMY: Music and lyrics written by Irving Berlin. CALL ME MISTER: Music and Lyrics written by Harold Rome. WINGED VICTORY: Music written by David Rose. Includes liner notes by Will Friedwald. Recording information: New York, NY (06/28/1942-04/28/1946). Directors: Milton Rosenstock; Lehman Engel. This CD reissue combines recordings from three Broadway shows of the World War II era: Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, a musical revue staged by the U.S. Army that ran on Broadway in 1942 and then toured around the world during the war for the next three years; Harold Rome's Call Me Mister, a musical revue concerning the social adjustments of the immediate postwar period that opened in 1946 and ran until 1948; and Winged Victory, a play with incidental music concerning the U.S. Army Air Force that ran in 1943-1944. All three shows were recorded by Decca Records during their Broadway runs, with the results issued on 78-rpm cast albums. This Is the Army and Call Me Mister were reissued on 10" LPs in 1950, but the four songs from Winged Victory (originally issued on two 12" 78s) have never been reissued until this CD. It may be coincidence, but British reissue label Jasmine put out a CD of This Is the Army/Call Me Mister in 2002, taking advantage of the 50-year copyright limit on recordings in Europe. This release provides stiff competition to that gray-market release, particularly because the sound quality is far superior. Recorded in the early days of original Broadway cast albums, they nevertheless provide good, if truncated, versions of these complementary shows. Both Berlin and Rome take a somewhat satirical view of military life (the brief Winged Victory choral music is far more formal). Berlin, reprising his World War I song "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," provides some of the humor himself, while Rome gives Betty Garrett the comic hit "South America, Take It Away." Both shows also feature integrated casts and songs specifically intended for African-American listeners. Berlin's "What the Well Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear" is a conventional production song, while Rome's black-oriented numbers, notably "Going Home Train," have a more ethnic flavor and are distinctively rendered by Lawrence Winters. Taken together, the CD provides a big chunk of 1940s Broadway music that has long lingered in the vaults or been reissued only in inferior form. ~ William Ruhlmann
録音 : ステレオ (Studio)