THE NEW KRITZERLAND LIMITED EDITION CAST ALBUM RELEASE IS...

[bk]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 3:05am

“DOIN’ IT FOR SUGAR”

KRITZERLAND IS VERY PROUD TO PRESENT A SPECIAL 2 CD LIMITED EDITION:

SUGAR
Original Cast Album
Music by Jule Styne Lyrics by Bob Merrill

Sometimes timing is everything. If, for example, Sugar, a musical based on a beloved film comedy, with two great male starring roles, directed by an amazing director/choreographer, had opened not in April 1972 but in April 2001, the year another musical based on a beloved film comedy, with two great male starring roles, directed by an amazing director/choreographer, instead of April 1972, my guess is it would have been a smash hit and run for a very long time. But The Producers had the timing and Sugar didn’t.

Sugar had the misfortune to open at a time when the musical theater was going through great change – as Time magazine critic T.E. Kalem put it in his review of Sugar: “Sugar is almost a textbook case of a musical born after its time. It may well enjoy great wads of audience favor. But in the past three years Company and Follies have altered the critical perspective by providing a musical form that is spare, intelligent, ironic, mature and capable of sustaining three-dimensional characters.” By 2001, audiences, after years of spare, intelligent, ironic, mature musicals, were ready, willing, and more than able to embrace on old-fashioned nothing-on-its-mind-but-laughs-and-entertainment musical like The Producers. But in 1972, Sugar, despite its non-stop hilarity and tuneful Jule Styne/Bob Merrill songs, seemed like a bit of a dinosaur, at least to critics. The book was deemed clunky and the score uninspired. And maybe it seemed that way back then. Now, it seems a model of musical comedy craftsmanship. From the first notes of the overture you know it’s a Jule Styne score – and what an overture it is, classic Styne all the way, with great tunes, one after another, all orchestrated by the wonderful Philip J. Lang. The songs are clever and fun and occasionally laugh out loud funny – it’s a real musical comedy score, the kind they don’t write any more. The performances are stellar, with great work from stars Robert Morse, Tony Roberts, Elaine Joyce, and Cyril Ritchard.

Sugar was originally released on United Artists records. It was then issued on CD in 1999 by Ryko (the Ryko is long out of print and bringing fairly high prices). For this release we pulled all the tapes from the MGM vaults. As was the case with Promises, Promises, the first thing we found was that the Ryko version was not the original album mix, but a remix that simply attempted to ape the original album mix. The original album masters were there, along with all the sixteen-track session tapes. After listening to the album masters, we couldn’t believe how much swimmy, washy reverb was used on that original mix (and on the CD released by Ryko). It was the fashion back then, but this was just about the heaviest reverb we’d ever heard on a cast recording. It robbed the orchestra of detail and the vocals sounded like they were in a huge garage. The album masters did, however, sound better than the previous CD release.

The sound on the sixteen-track session tapes was astounding. Yes, it was dry, and yes it needed some space added, but the recording itself and the way the band and performers sounded was so crystal clear and beautiful and brassy that it took no more than five seconds to realize that we wanted to do what we did with Promises, and offer an alternate new mix along with the original album mix on CD for the first time.

Remixing this score was a particular joy. Suddenly we were hearing wonderful orchestral details we’d never heard before – we placed the instruments a little differently in the soundstage for optimum clarity, and the vocals sound much more present and are no longer occasionally getting beaten up by the band the way they were in the original. So we hope it will be fun to hear this alternate mix with a lot less artificial processing – we think it gives the score a whole new vibrancy and vitality as well as crystal clarity.

This release is limited to 1000 copies only. We’ve priced this 2 CD set at our normal 1 CD price of $19.98 plus shipping.

CD will ship by the second week of October – however, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we’ve been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 10:02am

Is anyone not seeing it on the website? I'd gladly order, but...

[notabb]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 10:31am

just to listen to the samples and hear the before and after is amazing. SUGAR benefits even more than PROMISES did from the clean up. I already ordered mine thru paypal.

[tdl83]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 10:32am

I'm sure it will be wonderful.........Have already ordered it..... get yours now!!!!!

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 12:19pm

Wow, what an improvement! Of course I picked it up right away. Great job, bk.

[bk]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 1:50pm

Husk, sometimes you have to either clear your cache or refresh the page, but it's there. Let me know if you continue to have a problem.

[jasonf]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 2:00pm

I can't see it either...

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 2:02pm

Cleared my cache and now it's paid for :)

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 2:32pm

"Not only bought, but paid for!" I actually am seeing how this could top a list of favorite scores, because for the first time I can actually hear the thing and it sounds like a classic Jule Styne Columbia cast recording. Plus, I might add, my first exposure, and more familiar experience, of this score is through Tommy Steele's "Some Like It Hot," and that is truly a lackluster recording.

Now, what I don't understand is what the first disc in the set is exactly.. it's the original MGM LP mix with a certain amount of the timely Mitch Miller imposed reverb? Is that correct? Then, Ryko just added MORE reverb to that mix for the '99 release? Sorry if I'm being dense.

[bk]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 3:00pm

You're not being dense. CD 1 is the original LP mix as produced by Mitch (King of Reverb) Miller - first time CD release. Ryko's CD was a remix done for reasons that elude me since they had the album masters. All the remix did, however, was try to emulate Mitch's mix, so it's the same awful washy reverb replicated and then shoved onto CD with no mastering skills.

Reverb is a really misunderstood word - there's reverb and then there's REVERB. Most producers don't have a clew how to use it or what it's actual function is. If you listen to any Goddard Lieberson cast album, obviously there is reverb, but it's GOOD reverb that simply adds some space around the instruments and vocals. Without that, you get small and dry, which is what a lot of today's cast album producers favor - I don't. I spent the first months of my record producing life figuring out the reverb I like and trying to have it be like Lieberson's but with today's cleaner more focused technology. We got it right pretty quickly and that is the reverb we use - and I have been asked about it by people that would surprise you and I do not reveal what we're doing. :)

But yes, this is like hearing Sugar for the first time, and it is a classic Styne score that now sounds like it should have - interestingly, it was recorded where all the Columbia albums were recorded - at Columbia Studios - and that's why the sixteen-track master tapes sounded spectacular to begin with.

More interestingly, we've received more orders for this than Promises had on its first non-holiday announcement day. Go know.

And here's my guess: I think we're going to soon hear that there is either a major production in the works, or a film. I say this just looking at a couple of people who've ordered the CD :)

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 4:02pm

Ok, that does make sense. You confirmed what I had thought I was reading. I understand exactly what you're saying about the nuance of reverb and bringing space to a recording. Thanks for clewing me in. =) Interesting info all around!

Congrats on another hit reissue! Who would have thought this would outpace Promises?

Something else I've wondered, if I may, is who owns these revelatory mixes of Sugar and Promises? When your license expires on these titles do the mixes you've mastered revert to MGM/Ryko/whoever for them to reissue whenever they desire? What's the arrangement there?

[bk]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 4:04pm

We have an understanding that should anyone at some point choose to license these, they would not be able to license my work without some sort of recompense to me. In other words, they'd be able to put out the album mix only.

[broadwaydanwi]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 4:46pm

I can't wait to get my copy! I wonder if it will include a surprise bonus track....

[bk]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 5:30pm

I wonder...

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/6/10 at 5:56pm

What could there be to add as a bonus? Foreign recordings? Demos? Pop recordings? Interviews? One wonders...

You know how to build suspense, bk. I feel like a kid the night before Christmas morning when I hear about your forthcoming releases. Your 2 CD Promises, Promises has been my summer jam, and since then I've been dying for something as fun or surprising, at the very least, from K-land. Still waiting for your 2 CD treatment of Whoop-Up. =) Although, the Polydor CD reissue is amazing.

[bk]

Posted: 9/16/10 at 11:19pm

Shipping in the morning.

[tazber]

Posted: 9/17/10 at 12:47pm

!!!

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/17/10 at 12:56pm

Bomb-diggity! I see it has not yet sold out. How close are is it?

[bk]

Posted: 9/17/10 at 4:23pm

It's exactly where the two CD of Promises was when that shipped - we have about two hundred left. Once word hit the street about the remix of Promises, that sold out in less than two days - hoping the same thing happens here.

[tazber]

Posted: 9/20/10 at 3:05pm

I'm listening to mine now.

Wow, Bruce you have done an unbelievable job. It sounds like an entirely new score recorded yesterday. Kudos!

I can not recommend this highly enough.

(You're poppin' your "P's" honey)

Updated On: 9/20/10 at 03:05 PM

[bk]

Posted: 9/20/10 at 5:08pm

Isn't that a hoot? I got a wonderful Facebook message from Robert Morse - who was bowled over by it and very moved.

[broadwaydanwi]

Posted: 9/20/10 at 5:48pm

Today it rained here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. No hail. I can tell you it's just hell when it hails in Milwaukee! Luckily, I got to stay inside and listen to the new cast recording of SUGAR from Kritzerland. The sound is amazing, and I just love the "extras" at the end of the last track. They made me smile!

[bk]

Posted: 9/21/10 at 2:15pm

I know - when I was sort of nosing around other takes of things and I heard the bombast that was Mitch Miller it just cracked me up, so I had my engineer pull everything he said, from slates to comments, and then I assembled the best of them.

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/24/10 at 6:29pm

Just received mine and as I expected it sounds like a whole new score. Where as before it was something unremarkable to listen to on Ryko CD, now it seems far too short... I LOVE the outtakes.

Could Robert Morse BE any more adorable? One thing I noticed on the remixed version is that Robert's occasional growls don't come through as noticeably. But, I have only listened to it once and it was while working.

[newintown]

Posted: 9/24/10 at 6:55pm

Sounds terrific, Bruce. I vow to never doubt you again.