CDs: Kim Conquers Berlin

Now based in London, actress-singer Kim Criswell recently returned to these shores to star for Goodspeed Musicals in Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam. Some years back, she starred in a West End revival of Berlin's other Ethel Merman musical, Annie Get Your Gun, a show Criswell also recorded for Angel.

The highlight of Criswell's new JAY CD devoted to the songs of Berlin are the five numbers from Call Me Madam, all heard in the original Don Walker orchestrations. In "Hostess With the Mostes'" and "You're Just in Love" joined in the latter by Matt Bogart, Criswell couldn't be zestier, the voice huge, the personality strong. Her "Best Thing For You" is both lovely and powerful, and she's just as good in "Washington Square Dance" and the disc's title track. The Madam numbers may not have been sung this well since Merman.

A formidable belter, Criswell can also turn intimate on "Count Your Blessings" and "How Deep Is the Ocean?" Demonstrating her vocal versatility, she exercises her soprano tones on charming renditions of "Always" and "White Christmas." There's a spirited "Heat Wave" and a splendidly built "Mr. Monotony." While the latter made it to Broadway in Jerome Robbins' Broadway, it was cut from Miss Liberty and Call Me Madam, so it may be counted as a sixth Madam song.

Criswell's voice is almost too big for the piano-only accompaniment of "Blue Skies" and "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy." There's one rarity here, a rag called "Down in Chattanooga." And Criswell wraps up the proceedings with a rousing "God Bless America."

A few of these tracks have appeared before, on such JAY recordings as The Musicality of Berlin, Showstoppers from Broadway, and Criswell's solo disc Back to Before. But if the performances weren't all recorded at the same time or with the same accompaniment and conducting, Criswell is uniformly grand throughout. This is the most enjoyable solo disc that's come my way for some time.

JOHN BARROWMAN SWINGS COLE PORTER First Night

John Barrowman made his West End debut in 1989 in the London edition of the Lincoln Center Theater version of Cole Porter's Anything Goes. Barrowman has spent the past season as leading man of the Trevor Nunn-National Theatre revival of Anything Goes. And he also appears in this summer's new Porter biopic, De-Lovely. So it's entirely fitting that his latest solo disc is a Porter salute.

The songs are mostly standards, although Barrowman includes the rarely sung "Ca, C'est l'Amour" from Les Girls and an Anything Goes song he doesn't get to do in the show, the title number. He's especially strong on "What Is This Thing Called Love?," "I Happen to Like New York," "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," and the always lovely "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye."

Barrowman's backed by a thirty-five-piece orchestra, arranged and orchestrated by Larry Blank and conducted by Stewart Mackintosh. Barrowman's combination of direct, unfussy phrasing and easy, attractive vocals is very appealing.

Barrowman's only substantial Broadway appearance to date, Putting It Together, only hinted at his talents. He was terrific when he played Joe Gillis for a week in the Broadway Sunset Boulevard, and he was a superb Robert in the Kennedy Center's Company. Perhaps he'll return to these shores when Nunn's Anything Goes makes its American debut next year in Los Angeles, with a Broadway stand possible thereafter.

IT'S DE-LOVELY: THE AUTHENTIC COLE PORTER COLLECTION Bluebird/BMG

Also coinciding with the release of De-Lovely is this collection of Porter recordings from the RCA Victor catalogue, all made during Porter's lifetime. They feature period dance bands Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Ray Noble, Leo Reisman, jazz artists Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Shorty Rogers, and great vocalists, including Lena Horne "From This Moment On," "Just One of Those Things", Frank Sinatra "Night and Day", Dinah Shore "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To", Fred Astaire "Night and Day", and Rosemary Clooney "You Do Something to Me". Cowboy Roy Rogers is heard in the eminently suitable "Don't Fence Me In."

Of particular interest are Porter's own 1934 recordings with piano of "Anything Goes" and "You're the Top," here skillfully overdubbed with 2004 orchestral arrangements in '30s style by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks.

This might be the perfect CD for background listening at those summertime get-togethers.

I SING! JAY

With music by Eli Bolin and lyrics by Sam Forman, I Sing! was first performed in June 2001 at the Maverick Theatre, where the cast included Billy Eichner, Jeff Juday, Jodie Langel, Michael Raine, and Meredith Zeitlin. On October 14, 2002, York Theatre Company gave the piece a benefit concert mounting, and the concert cast recorded the show for JAY immediately thereafter.

Backed by four musicians, the company features Matt Bogart Miss Saigon, Aida, The Civil War, Danny Gurwin The Full Monty tour, Kennedy Center/City Opera A Little Night Music, Lauren Kennedy The Last Five Years, National Theatre South Pacific, Chad Kimball Into the Woods, My Life with Albertine, and Leslie Kritzer Bat Boy, Hairspray, Paper Mill Funny Girl.

"We could have called the show 'Sex in the City Meets Friends Set to Music,'" explains the show's director and co-author, Benjamin Salka, in the accompanying booklet. He goes on to describe the show as the story of "a group of cynical kids, just out of college, struggling and often failing to make wise choices in their relationships. They are ultra hip and culturally savvy, but also woefully immature."

Heavily influenced by the work of William Finn, with a bit of Jason Robert Brown thrown in, this is above-average material. Much of the music is brightly attractive. The lyrics feature some clever rhymes, as well as some others that are more questionable. The talented performers hurl themselves into their roles and supply a good deal of high-powered singing, although at times one must consult the cast list to tell them apart.

But at over ninety minutes, this roundelay of relationships just isn't sufficiently compelling. JAY has given I Sing!, the work of unknowns, the full, double-CD-plus-libretto treatment. It's slightly disconcerting to realize that the label could be doing likewise with its unreleased One Touch of Venus, the only complete recording of a golden-age Broadway hit composed by one of the musical theatre's greatest talents.

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