The Great American Composers: Rodgers & Hart

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Richard Rodgers' career can be divided into two eras -- his later, more familiar period collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein III, and his earlier, more daring and quirkier period working with Lorenz Hart (1895-1943). None of their shows displayed the closely integrated nature of the Rodgers & Hammerstein shows, and, with the exception of the British-made Evergreen, none of the screen adaptations ever captured the flavor, much less the substance of the stage versions. But the songs were passionate in ways that a lot of the Rodgers & Hammerstein work, for all of its panache, wasn't, and the lyrics were often saucy and always incredibly clever. And the songs do live on, as displayed by the content of this double-CD of Rodgers & Hart material. Columbia has a major advantage in dealing with a lot of this repertory, owing to the fact that the label cut a number of studio cast albums of works such as The Boys From Syracuse during the middle and late 1950s, thus getting a number of the songs recorded in proper, formal versions. This set draws from that material, as well as individual song performances by the likes of Doris Day ('Ten Cents a Dance,' and etc.), Tony Bennett, Joel Gray, Johnny Mathis, Buddy Greco, Eileen Farrell, Frankie Laine ('Blue Moon'), Vic Damone, and the Dave Brubeck Quartet (doing the Rodgers waltz 'Lover'). The performances are all charming and well chosen, with a few of them, like Jack Cassidy's 'Babes In Arms,' Mary Martin's 'My Funny Valentine,' and Portia Nelson and Jack Cassidy's 'There's a Small Hotel,' worth the price of the set by themselves. As always, notes would have been nice, and the inclusion of a few lost jewels such as 'In The Heat of the Evening' would have been nice, but that wasn't budgeted.