... Worth reviving again and again Revivals of The Pajama Game have not been as thick on the ground as those of other post-war American musicals in this country, and back in the fifties it did not have the impact of its great predecessors in the West End. What remains in the memories of those who did see it then were three memorable songs, Hey There, Steam Heat and Hemando's Hideaway, and a ...

... Singing the blues Twenty years ago I remember seeing Dana Gillespie in the very first stage production of Tommy at Hornchurch and before that she was in Hair. But the main preoccupation throughout her career has been in earning a reputation as one of the best blues singers in Europe, her skills in this direction being demonstrated on Have I Got Blues lor You, on Wolf 120.962 CD. This is ...

... Classic sound of Jelly Roll COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE One cannot hope to adequately describe or even understand the process by which Artis Wodehouse transferred 75-year-old piano rolls to a nine-foot Yamaha Disklavier automatic piano, giving us the opportunity to hear Jellv Roll Morton olav as he really sounded back in the early twenties, and on what is probably a greatly superior instrument ...

... Simplistic appeal--but original is best COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE Almost the bete noire for those of us who attend showcases and talent contests is I Will Always Love You, as sung by those who imitate Whitney Houston's version. But on her CD Making Love (TER CDVIR 8328), Salena Jones sings it more or less as written, proving that it is really a simple and very tender song, moving completely ...

... Capital songs sung with proud nostalgia By PETER HEPPLE Songs about London do not have quite the romance of those about Paris or even New York. But Conifer's Happy Days compilation (75605 52286 2) does have a great deal of character and variation, representing everything from the music hall era (and even earner, in tne case ot pretty roiiy Perkins of Paddington Green) to the evocative A ...

... TRICKY FUSION m fusion between early music and modem jazz is not the easiest thing to accomplish. And so it proves in Extempore (Linn CKD 078), in which the Scottish-based vocal quartet the Orlando Consort meets London-based experimental jazz outfit Perfect plants. Jazz fans are not likely to be well versed in the ninth to 14th century polyphony that is the Consorts normal territory as a ...

... SETTLING THE SCORE Listening to That's Entertain ment's CD reissue of Thomas and the King (CDTER 1009), which opened at Her Majesty's in October 1975 and closed about a fortnight later, gives us a chance to re-evaluate the score written by John Williams. And very impressive it is, conjuring up the period in which the musical is set, the reign of Henry II. But I am not surprised that the show ...

... The John Dankworth and Friends album Moon Valley (ABCD 7) is essentially the same unit which backs Dankworth's cabaret and concert dates with his wife Cleo Laine--John Horler on piano, Allan Ganley on drums and Malcolm Creese, whose own AB label has released the CD, on bass. So there is naturally a cohe sion about the album, with its high proportion of original themes, which comes from play ...

... PRIMA EXAMPLE Recording equipment may have been primitive before the First World War, but it was precise enough to capture the unique tim bre of Luisa Tetrazzini, commemo rated in Nimbus' admirable Prima Voce series (Nl 7891). This is Volume 2 of the great Italian diva's recorded legacy, and great stuff it is, demonstrating the sheer fearlessness of her technique. These are superb examples of ...

... Romance from the Caribbean COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE Music from the Caribbean has figured strongly in recent releases. Those who like their music lilting and romantic will be enchanted by the Nimbus disc Cuba the Trova (Nl 5565) by Trio Yagua, who come from Mayari Arraba. They specialises in the Trova, a century-old song form interpreted by trovadores, a name that is taken from the troubadour ...

... MAY OUI Voted Best British Jazz Singer in 1997, Tina May has taken a few years to reach this eminence, having started off as an actress in France, which gives her CD Jazz Piquant (33 Records 33JAZZ942) both an authentic accent and a sense of drama while still staying true to its jazz credentials. The French have con tributed some of the best pop songs of all time (Que reste t'il, C'est si ...

... MOVIE-ING WITH TIME Considering that most Top 20 songs these days are instantly forgettable and often indistin guishable or is that old age talking it comes as a delight to discover, through The Glory of the Movie Songs (MCI MPMCD 008) that even the most mediocre film musicals of the forties contained at least one song that resonates, even after 50 years. Take Thrill of Romance, with I Should ...