... Night when one star shone the brightest Compiled by Peter Hepple Self-congratulatory or not, Cameron Mackintosh's tribute to himself. Hey Mr Producer!, must be counted as one of the significant one-night presentations of the nineties and the double CD (First Night Encore CD9) will provide a treasured memento for those who were there and some consolation for those who weren't. Mackintosh is ...

... Unai thought it was fascinating music COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE Akemodoro Unai introduces us to the fascinating music of Okinawa, a Pacific Island which throughout the century has been under both Japanese and American influences. This is not folk music as such, but is utterly distinctive, the artists here being the four-strong female vocal group Nenes, who have visited this country more than ...

... Americans are singin' it all BY PETER HEPPLE Singin' in the Rain was one of the first stage musicals to be manufactured from other media, and its success prompted many other producers to follow the same path. The American version heard on TER's disc (CDTER 1240) is not the same as the British version, which had difficulties in obtaining ail the rights to the film music. This one, staged at ...

... So you don't like jazz? It is hardly surprising that Martin Taylor's Spirit of Django album Gypsy (Linn AKD 090) won the best small group CD prize at this year's British Jazz Awards, for it is a delight and strongly recommended to all those who think they don't like jazz. Taylor is not attempting to copy the Reinhardt and Grappelli sound in fact the other frontline instruments, besides the ...

... Musical's gentle charms COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE 110° In the Shade was one of those transitional musicals as far as the London stage is concerned. It followed some years after a succession of big American shows and, as I recollect, was regarded as something of a let down--particularly as to us, at least, it traversed some of the same territory as Oklahoma!, though it is set in Texas. ...

... TIMELY AND THOUGHTFUL John Adams' work I Was Looking at the Celling and Then I Saw the Sky falls into that category that is betwixt and between, usualry called music theatre. As such, it is best to approach it with an open mind, mindful of the fact that it is more likely to appeal to the young than the seasoned operagoer brought up on a diet of Mozart, Puccini and Wagner. It is a striking, ...

... TERRIFIC TRUMPETS Perhaps it was because I saw Nat Gonella mainly as a bandleader and, for a brief time, as a solo act in variety, that I did not appreciate at the time what a good jazz trumpet player he was. Although he obviously mod elled himself to a certain extent on his idol Louis Armstrong, the Nat Gonella Tribute (President PLCD 571) is a fascinating retro spective of his career from ...

... STRONG CAST Most of the older generation of musical theatre lovers have got a soft spot for Brigadoon, despite a plot knee-deep in Scottish whimsy as seen from the other side of the Atlantic. And it does have some very good songs all crammed into an hour's worth of CD by TER (CDTER 6003). There is a strong cast too, what with Ethan Freeman as Tommy and the opera singer Janis Kelly as Fiona, ...

... HARRIS NOVELTY To most people, Phil Harris will be remembered as the voice of Baloo the Bear in the Jungle Book, to film fans he was the husband of Alice Faye and occasional actor himself. Wartime radio listeners will recall he was an important part of the Jack Dei my eniuuidge. But to many of us he was known for having made some of the most distinctive recordings of the late forties and ...

... NEW LABEL a new record label ot considerable interest to our readers is ABM, issued by the Audio Book and Music Company, which has so far released around 30 titles covering jazz, pop, country and nostalgia from the forties to the sixties. Though the jazz CDs have details of personnel and recording dates, the provenance of others is less certain, for instance the Judy Garland disc PutrJn' on ...

... SPIRIT OF TANGO Though Maria de Buenos Aires, described as a tango operetta, has never been done as a fully staged piece, one can imagine it being produced with a group of dancers. In the form heard on the Teldec double CD (3984-206322) it is purely a concert tion, but it does nave music by the great Astor Piazzolla, who composed it to a libretto by Horacio Ferrer, dealing with a girl who ...

... TALENTED FAMILY A Portrait of a Famon (NJF 34) introduces us to a member of a talented family, Robert's niece Nicola, who has been quietly making her way, mostly in the north of England, as a jazz bass player and singer. Both talents are displayed on this CD, which also features three more fine young musicians from the north Ben Martin on tenor sax, Chris Walker (guitar) and Phil Johnson ...