First listen HELLO, DOLLY!- Page 4

[Stage Door Sally]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 6:01pm

What's disappointing to me is the attitude of the decision maker for this recording. Go to all that trouble to make a high quality historic production with massive box office sales and public appeal — "Dolly Day."

And then make a low quality CD that is going to be out there forever as a representation of your work? Someone has incredibly low standards. Shame.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 6:43pm

Agreed

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 6:45pm

Agreed

[Jarethan]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 7:05pm

Stage Door Sally said: "What's disappointing to me is the attitude of the decision maker for this recording. Go to all that trouble to make a high quality historic production with massive box office sales and public appeal — "Dolly Day."

And then make a low quality CD that is going to be out there forever as a representation of your work? Someone has incredibly low standards. Shame.

 

I don't think it is low quality, per se.  It is not cheap, like, say,  the original Follies recording.  Rather, some bad decisions were made.  There are a lot of pleasures in it, they are just the wrong ones.  (When Ribbons, Dancing, Penny, and Moment are the highlights of a Hello Dolly recording, something is wrong).  

To draw an analogy, as Lola says 'the sex is in the heels', a Dolly recording listener wants to say 'the joy is in the lungs'.  The big numbers lack the energy of the original album.  With Sunday Clothes, you felt the chorus was going to bust a gut getting to the end of the song; same thing with the title song.  Even So Long, Dearie, normally a great 11:00 o'clock number is just too muted.

What a shame!

PS -- I am still enjoying it.  Even a disappointing Hello Dolly recording is better than most show recordings.

 

 

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 8:04pm

Dollypop said: "

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

 

 

I was chatting with someone in the business about this recording and mentioned that when Bette ad lib's in the title number, it seems like she is alone and talking into the air. He responded that she was, indeed, alone. The chorus recorded their parts at different times. There's lots of negative talk about this recording within the industry.  

 

 

A friend of mine is in the cast of DOLLY. He refutes this and assured me the ensemble and the principals were all in the same room during the recording sessions.

 

[TNick926]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 8:09pm

According to this article, the original production had an orchestra of 25. https://dctheatrescene.com/2013/03/22/a-new-sound-for-hello-dolly/

This new production has 23, and there is probably some doubling that didn't happen in 1964.  The new recording sounds great to me - crisp, clear and alive with the words and music of the great Jerry Herman!  

The original production had a cast of 45, this one has a cast of 36, so that can certainly make a difference in fullness of sound in the vocals, certainly.

Still, I'm happy with it.  I really DO miss the full finale and bows as recorded on the Pearl Bailey version, though!

[Stage Door Sally]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 8:20pm

I am not disparaging the performances by the cast. They are so good. David Hyde Pierce shines in Penny in My Pocket... Kate Baldwin is glorious....  I have listened to it a number of times now, and it mostly leaves me... empty. I defer to bk, it's gotta be the mixing. The fun has been sucked out. I ordered seven CDs so I have a vested interest.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 9:02pm

If you look at the way NPR listed the numbers, the Finale is performed by Bette,  David AND ENSEMBLE. Very possibly the full Finale is on the CD.

[DAME]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 9:50pm

I just read Peter Filichias review of the CD and I totally agree with him.  Masterworks has the blog entry on their site.

 

 

http://www.masterworksbroadway.com/blog/newest-dolly-newest-recording-peter-filichia/

[noradesmond]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 10:20pm

qolbinau said: "It's sad to see so many people disappointed with the new recording. Hopefully when the high quality recording is released and the initial shock wears off that it's not quite the same experience watching it live people can start to warm up to it. Personally I think it still captures pretty well what is heard on the Shubert stage."

Thank you!  I am very disappointed in the sound quality on these NPR tracks. At least when I've listened, the sound has been rough and often distorted. It may account for some of the negativity bring expressed here am I am anxiously awaiting the high quality tracks on Friday.  

[Robbie2]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 10:25pm

DAME said: "I just read Peter Filichias review of the CD and I totally agree with him.  Masterworks has the blog entry on their site.

 

 

http://www.masterworksbroadway.com/blog/newest-dolly-newest-recording-peter-filichia/

 

TY Dame

 

"

 

[bk]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 11:01pm

Jarethan said: "Stage Door Sally said: "What's disappointing to me is the attitude of the decision maker for this recording. Go to all that trouble to make a high quality historic production with massive box office sales and public appeal — "Dolly Day."

And then make a low quality CD that is going to be out there forever as a representation of your work? Someone has incredibly low standards. Shame.

 

I don't think it is low quality, per se.  It is not cheap, like, say,  the original Follies recording.  Rather, some bad decisions were made.  There are a lot of pleasures in it, they are just the wrong ones.  (When Ribbons, Dancing, Penny, and Moment are the highlights of a Hello Dolly recording, something is wrong).  

To draw an analogy, as Lola says 'the sex is in the heels', a Dolly recording listener wants to say 'the joy is in the lungs'.  The big numbers lack the energy of the original album.  With Sunday Clothes, you felt the chorus was going to bust a gut getting to the end of the song; same thing with the title song.  Even So Long, Dearie, normally a great 11:00 o'clock number is just too muted.

What a shame!

PS -- I am still enjoying it.  Even a disappointing Hello Dolly recording is better than most show recordings.

 

 

 

"

And here you have a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  There was NOTHING "cheap" about the original Follies CD (other than the decision to make it one CD) - everyone has always blamed lousy recording on how terrible the original LP and CDs sounded - and they did.  But to my amazement, when I pulled the original eight-track session masters to remix it to see if we could improve it at all, the recording itself was glorious and perfect - and if you have that remix you know just how beautiful it is - we simply made it sound the way it always should have sounded but didn't because of - a LOUSY MIX.  Voices were never in the right place, the band didn't sound that great, instruments leapt out as if someone had goosed them in the behind - the new mix took care of all of that and made it sound as it should.  I'll say it until it sinks in: It's all in the mix. As long as the engineer got it all down without distortion, and as long as it's properly laid out, tracks-wise, you can do anything in the mix - that is, if you know what you're doing.  Perhaps this producer likes this kind of small, drier sound - I do not.  No one who grew up with the Columbia cast albums would ever like this kind of sound.

[bk]

Posted: 5/9/17 at 11:03pm

You guys do understand that Peter writes for the Sony website, right?  He's not about to give it a bad review :)

[DAME]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:13am

Yes.  Totally understand that.  But Peter is never dishonest.   Here is another review.  This one by Mark Robinson:

 

http://www.markrobinsonwrites.com/the-music-that-makes-me-dance/2017/5/9/review-hello-dolly-the-new-broadway-cast-recording

[morosco]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:17am

I'd love to hear what bk could do if he could remix this Dolly.  His Follies and Promises, Promises are stunning improvements compared to the original releases.

[DAME]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:20am

Forgive my ignorance.  But besides being a poster here.. who is BK?

[morosco]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:33am

BK is Bruce Kimmel (aka Guy Haines) who is a record producer along with many other talents. His label is Kritzerland Records.

Kritzerland

[DAME]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:34am

Thanks morocco!

[GottaHaveAGimmick]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:45am

morosco said: "BK is Bruce Kimmel (aka Guy Haines) who is a record producer along with many other talents. His label is Kritzerland Records.

Kritzerland

 

When he was with label Varese Sarabande in 1994, he produced the Grammy nominated Hello, Dolly CD with Carol Channing.

 

[JudyDenmark]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:50am

noradesmond said: "Thank you!  I am very disappointed in the sound quality on these NPR tracks. At least when I've listened, the sound has been rough and often distorted. It may account for some of the negativity bring expressed here am I am anxiously awaiting the high quality tracks on Friday."

I had the same reaction. I was all excited about the orchestrations and vocal arrangements, but the sound quality was just terrible! I'm assuming that's a low res streaming issue and not a problem with the actual recording. I'm withholding judgement until the real thing is released. 

 

[SmokeyLady]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:52am

"THE NEWEST DOLLY ON THE NEWEST RECORDING BY PETER FILICHIA

Well, my heart is about to burst. My head is about to pop. Pardon me if my old spirit is showing.

The reason is the new cast album of Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce, Kate Baldwin and Gavin Creel. After Dolly Gallagher Levi and Horace Vandergelder have decided on marriage on Track 16, I return to Track 1 and repeat the process time and time again.

The packaging alone provides a delightful surprise. The album is encased in what’s known in the trade as an “o-card” – a cardboard wrapper – that’s all red with white lettering.

Is this a tribute to David Merrick, the show’s original producer, who liked red so much that “David Merrick red” became an actual Broadway idiom?

Ah, but when you slide the actual plastic jewel box out of the o-card, you see a very close replication of the cover of the platinum-selling 1964 original cast album, where the dominant color was black.

(Is this to reference David Merrick’s black heart?)

Midler’s name in the same pink as Carol Channing’s and the show’s title is still in red – nay, David Merrick red. Then, however, come two notable differences. The names of bookwriter Michael Stewart and composer-lyricist Jerry Herman are in much larger typeface than they were way back when. Although by 1964 Stewart had had two hits (Bye Bye Birdieand Carnival) and Herman one near hit (Milk and Honey), they didn’t truly become part of the Broadway elite until Dolly. Their new billing here reflects that achievement.

What’s inside the jewel box is, of course, far more exciting. Those who have been lucky enough to see the revival (and have caused the lines at Hamilton to be a lit-tle shorter) already know this. When I attended, I saw an audience who came to display their love for Bette Midler, but by the time she did “Before the Parade Passes By,” they were just as much in love with Dolly Levi herself. Still, when David Hyde Pierce says at the end of the show “Wonderful woman!” we know he’s talking about Midler as well as Dolly.

If you’re an out-of-towner or in-towner who can’t snag a ticket, this album will be heaven on earth. It’s an album not to die for, but to live for. So if you can’t call on Dolly in person, you can at least do it electronically with the sixth major English-language recording.

Dolly has always made her entrance on one of those new horse-drawn open cars with her face obscured behind a newspaper. In this  production, it’s “The Sun,” which is most fitting, for Midler’s Dolly constantly shines like that big star. Although those solely listening to her on the album won’t be able to see her winning smile, Midler manages to make everyone somehow “hear” it.

Midler brings the single-minded determination that the role requires. Although she says in brass-tacks fashion that matchmaking is “a living,” we come to see that for her it’s not a profession, but a genuine calling, a vocation. She’s so pleased when her pairings work out, although she always knew they would.

The way she sings “My aplomb at cosmetic art” convinces us that there aren’t only two women on Broadway right now who are masters of make-up. When Midler cries out, “All aboard!” she crows it with such resolve that anyone who didn’t remotely have the price of a railroad ticket would get on the train and worry about being thrown off later.

Midler smoothly glides over the word “glide” in “Dancing” and in “So Long Dearie,” goes deliciously low on the word “low.” And if there’s ever been any doubt that Midler is inherently musical, hear her “Wow, wow, wow, fellas!” which sounds like a “wah, wah, wah” from a trombone’s silver-plated mute. In fact, if you give her an old trombone or give her an old baton, she’d probably be able to play the former and twirl the latter. Frankly, I wouldn’t doubt that she could do both at once. Dolly regrets that she’s “only one life to give for my country.” We regret that she’s only done one Broadway musical in the last half century. But she’s here now, and we can only hope that Midler’ll never go away again.

So what do we have that we didn’t have on the original Channing, Martin and Bailey albums? The real lagniappe is “Penny in My Pocket.” This patter song that originally ended the first act when Dolly was trying out in Detroit was an elaborate production number. Chorus members, to prove Vandergelder’s half-a-million wealth, brought out literally 106 (yes, 106) props from a grandfather clock to china dishes – all as Vandergelder told us how to succeed in business without really spending.

“But,” composer-lyricist Jerry Herman once told me, “as much as people liked the song, we could feel that they didn’t want to know about him at the end of Act One; they wanted to know about her.” And that’s why Vandergelder’s “Penny in My Pocket” gave way to Dolly’s “Before the Parade Passes By.”

It was the right decision, and it’s still the way Act One ends now at the Shubert. But before the second act begins with the usual “Elegance,” out comes David Hyde Pierce through the vertical split in the curtain to sing it. He hasn’t a single prop to his name, but he does have funny lyrics and a tuneful melody. (Of course it’s tuneful; it’s Jerry Herman!)

Also included here is “The Waiters’ Gallop,” where they show to music how busy the Harmonia Gardens is on any given night. It functions as a delicious appetizer before the magnificent entrée of the title song that everyone was singing, humming and whistling in early 1964 – one that many now will again.

Another nifty addition is one of my favorite lines in all musicals: Irene Malloy (in “Dancing&rdquo states “Oh, Dolly! The world is full of wonderful things!” It is, isn’t it? And isn’t Hello, Dolly! one of them?

Kate Baldwin is an Irene full of Irish moxie. She too like Dolly will now “rejoin the human race” after having observed a decent period of mourning. But notice that Dolly does it through a march (“Before the Parade Passes By&rdquo that’s befitting a 14th Street Parade, while Irene does it plaintively in “Ribbons Down My Back.” By the time Irene ends, though, she’s strongly singing the last few lines and is matching Dolly’s resolve.

Charles Nelson Reilly was endearing as Cornelius, but Gavin Creel shows us what a real voice can do with “It Only Takes a Moment.” (That’s the song,” Herman told me, “that I thought had a chance to be a hit. I never imagined the title song doing anything but being wonderful in the show.&rdquo

When Dolly opened in 1964, critics made a point of stating that the chorus was one of the vocally finest in years. History has repeated itself. This ensemble has the joy and ebullience of the original – but the men who partake of the title number do even more.

On every previous recording, the waiters – including Danny, Hank, Harry, Louie, Manny and the thinner Stanley – have sounded excited to see Dolly. However these waiters put more love into their voices. And don’t we all love to see Dolly loved as well as appreciated?

If you’re at home and seated while listening to the title tune, you may be moved enough to emulate the theatergoers who jump out of their seats. Yes! Don’t be shy! Go ahead! Stand! Do try this at home! Give both respect and enthusiasm for this magnificent showstopper that celebrates a cherished customer

(On the other hand, if you’re listening on your car stereo, stay seated unless you have a convertible and you’re already parked.)

The orchestrations have been gently massaged by Tony-winner Larry Hochman. (Note that accentuated banjo in “Motherhood.&rdquo Musical director Andy Einhorn has ordered a more leisurely tempo on “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” (but Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest). Otherwise, he gives the show a musical hotfoot.

So does the new recording have any advantage over the revival? Yes. While I was at the Shubert, I hated to have the wondrous event interrupted by an intermission, which seemed to last longer than Camelot in Toronto. The album is a non-stop ride, so join me on board that happiness express and savor the new Hello, Dolly!"

 

Apparently the link is not working.  So there it is above.  And I especially love this paragraph..

"Midler smoothly glides over the word “glide” in “Dancing” and in “So Long Dearie,” goes deliciously low on the word “low.” And if there’s ever been any doubt that Midler is inherently musical, hear her “Wow, wow, wow, fellas!” which sounds like a “wah, wah, wah” from a trombone’s silver-plated mute. In fact, if you give her an old trombone or give her an old baton, she’d probably be able to play the former and twirl the latter. Frankly, I wouldn’t doubt that she could do both at once. Dolly regrets that she’s “only one life to give for my country.” We regret that she’s only done one Broadway musical in the last half century. But she’s here now, and we can only hope that Midler’ll never go away again."

Updated On: 5/10/17 at 11:52 AM

[Chicken_Flavor]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 9:16pm

How the heck did I NOT see this thread?!? Anyways, what a wonderful way to end the day.

[mc1227]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 9:31pm

Justt heard "So long, Dearie" on Sirius radio and was quite underwhelmed.  Hope the rest has more life to it.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 10:14pm

BroadwayConcierge said: "Responding to Jarethan's point about Creel... he's 41 in real life. And nailing the boyish role of Cornelius. Isn't that amazing?!

 

"

Why so much emphasis on Creel's age? Isn't Cornelius in his 30s? And has never kissed a girl. Isn't that the point? Playing characters five years younger than one's actual age is pretty much standard for actors. Miss M, on the other hand, is 71 and playing a woman who is probably no older than 50.

***

I'm confused about "Penny in My Pocket". Isn't the point of the song that Horace has the first penny he ever earned (as the old saying goes)? Isn't that why his sudden quoting of Ephram about money being like manure is such a sign to Dolly?

Then why, in "Penny", does he say he gave $5 to a blind man? That strikes me as jarringly out of character.

[Stage Door Sally]

Posted: 5/10/17 at 11:54pm

I'm confused about "Penny in My Pocket". Isn't the point of the song that Horace has the first penny he ever earned (as the old saying goes)? Isn't that why his sudden quoting of Ephram about money being like manure is such a sign to Dolly?

Then why, in "Penny", does he say he gave $5 to a blind man? That strikes me as jarringly out of character.

 

This song is interesting because we get a glimpse into Horace's backstory. Young Horace was a good guy. Helping others with his money — working people, the blind, an elderly lady.... He was happily married to the boss's daughter, and then she died. That hit him quite hard. He left the business, bought an acre of property and re-invented himself, turning miserly and becoming sad, lonely, and unhappy in the process. Dolly's antics, although rather annoying, do reawaken and revitalize him. I don't want to give away anything, but the penny has significance and yeah, I had to break out a tissue.