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Fine and Dandy (2004 Studio Cast) (World Premiere Recording) | 
 enlarge | Artists: Kay Swift, Carolee Carmello, Gavin Creel, Andrea Burns, Mark Linn-baker, John Pizzarelli, Ann Hampton Callaway, Jessica Molaskey
Label: P.S. Classics
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $10.62
You Save: $7.36 (41%)
New (15) Used (11) from $8.90
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 164353
Format: Cast Recording
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 881692941921
EAN: 0881692941921
ASIN: B0001XAQDM
Release Date: May 25, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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| Tracks:
| • | Overture (Orchestra) | | • | Machine Shop Opening (Mark Linn-Baker & Ensemble) | | • | Rich or Poor (Gavin Creel & Jennifer Laura Thompson) | | • | Fine and Dandy (Carolee Carmello & Mario Cantone) | | • | Sing High (Male Ensemble) | | • | I'll Hit a New High (Andrea Burns & Male Ensemble) | | • | Starting at the Bottom (Gavin Creel) | | • | Can This Be Love? (Carolee Carmello) | | • | Fordyce (Ensemble) | | • | Let's Go Eat Worms in the Garden (Gavin Creel, Carolee Carmello & Ensemble) | | • | Etiquette (Mark Linn-Baker & Ensemble) | | • | The Jig-Hop (Andrea Burns & Ensemble) | | • | Can This Be Love? (reprise) (Jennifer Laura Thompson & Gavin Creel) | | • | Wedding Bells (Ensemble) | | • | Nobody Breaks My Heart (Carolee Carmello) | | • | Nature Will Provide (Deborah Tranelli) | | • | Finale Ultimo (Carolee Carmello & Ensemble) | | • | Up Among the Chimney Pots (Natalie Douglas) | | • | Can't We Be Friends? (John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molaskey) | | • | Whistling in the Dark (Jack Donahue) | | • | Once You Find Your Guy (Ann Hampton Callaway) |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Mary Rodgers is usually heralded as musical theater's sole woman composer, but this new recording of a long-lost gem introduces us to another brilliant member of Broadway's thin female ranks: Kay Swift. Collaborating with her husband, lyricist James Paul Warburg (writing as Paul James), Swift penned a splendid collection of tunes-in turn touching, daffy, percolating and tender-for this 1930 show. Taking place in the unlikely setting of a tool-and-die factory, Fine and Dandy is a bubbly jazz age musical full of melodic invention and lyrical twists. Fans of the Gershwins' 1920s oeuvre will adore this world-premiere recording, and in fact George is namechecked in the wonderful title track, in which Carolee Carmello and Mario Cantone compete in spirited one-upmanship. The CD also includes four songs written by Swift between 1929 and 1950; like Plain and Fancy, they serve to remind us that Swift was one of Broadway's unsung heroes. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
Description
The classic 1930 musical comedy in its world premiere recording, featuring a 28-piece orchestra and a cast of Broadway and jazz greats. An amazing roster of talent including Carolee Carmello (Kiss Me Kate, Parade), Gavin Creel (Thoroughly Modern Millie), Mario Cantone (Assassins and TV's Sex & The City), Mark Linn-Baker (A Year With Frog and Toad and TV's Perfect Strangers) and Jennifer Laura Thompson (Urinetown, Footloose) # is joined by bestselling jazz artists Ann Hampton Callaway, John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, all in loving tribute to one of the few female composers from the first half of the 20th Century: the legendary Kay Swift. With a new biography of the composer, entitled Fine and Dandy: The Life and Work of Kay Swift, due out June 1 from Yale University Press, this new recording is sure to attract the attention of Broadway and jazz music-lovers everywhere. Overture (Orchestra), Rich or Poor (Gavin Creel & Jennifer Laura Thompson), Fine and Dandy (Carolee Carmello & Mario Cantone), Machine Shop Opening (Mark Linn-Baker & Ensemble), Starting at the Bottom (Gavin Creel), Can This Be Love? (Carolee Carmello), I'll Hit a New High (Andrea Burns & Male Ensemble), Picnic Song (Ensemble), Let's Go Eat Worms in the Garden (Gavin Creel, Carolee Carmello & Ensemble), Can't We Be Friends? (John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molaskey), Up Among the Chimney Pots (Natalie Douglas), Whistling in the Dark (Jack Donahue), Etiquette (Mark Linn-Baker & Ensemble), The Jig-Hop (Andrea Burns & Ensemble), Nobody Breaks My Heart (Carolee Carmello), Can This Be Love? (reprise) (Jennifer Laura Thompson & Gavin Creel), Wedding Bells (Ensemble), Waltz (Deborah Tranelli), Finale Ultimo (Mario Cantone, Carolee Carmello & Ensemble), Once You Find Your Guy (Ann Hampton Callaway)
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| Customer Reviews:
Dandy May 6, 2005
Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
No one will easily mistake Kay Swift for Gershwin, but it is great that she is finally getting some recognition beyond "Can't We Be Friends?" (included here on this LP as a sort of bonus) which isn't itself all that familiar except to cabaret aficionados. Writing true show music is a different kettle of fish, an art form with different skills, and listening to this LP one begins to construct a live production of FINE AND DANDY in one's head. The voices of the individual performers are immensely helpful in this journey, and some of the tracks you could listen to day and night. I understand that Donald Ogden Stewart wrote the book for this show and I would love to get my hands on it, having enjoyed some of the films he worked on so much, Dinner at Eight, Holiday, Kitty Foyle, The Philadelphia Story and Europa 51 among them. His Socialist bent had an appealing, whimsical side to it and I can see the factory for which Kay Swift wrote her enchanting opening number as the perfect laboratory for Ogden Stewart's brand of inspired nuttiness. Gavin Creel and Carolee Carmello are vivacious and even infectious on their tracks, and it sounds as though they love the songs as much as we love them. "Can This Be Love?" already sounds like a standard, and I predict many renditions of the comical complaint number "Let's Go Eat Worms."
Don't know if a revival of the show would be successful, but it sounds as though it needs one bravura comedian to put it over big. Back in the 1930s they had Joe Cook. Who is Joe Cook's equivalent today? Someone like Will Ferrell I guess--gulp.
WOW Simply the best reconstructed show album to date!! February 23, 2005
William S. Oser (New Hampshire USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Fine and Dandy is simply the best 30s musical to be reconstructed for CD yet, and it was a complete surprise because who knew any of the songs from this show? Well, we know them now and they are teriffic, and performed by an equally teriffic cast, especially Carolee Carmello, Gavin Cleel and Jennifer Laura Thompson. Would it be fair to say that Ms. Carmello is wildly underappreciated? I have adored her ever since seeing her as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors many years ago in Boston. Here she is wonderful especially in Lets Go Eat Worms in the Garden and Nobody Breaks My Heart. It was so unexpected to find such a treasure trove of foot tapping songs, but here they are. BUY THIS CD if you like musicals at all, you won't be sorry.
More than Fine, and More than Dandy! September 18, 2004
T. Fanning (Canterbury School, New Milford, CT)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
I am very selective in writing reviews for Amazon - so if you're reading this, then please know that I must really, really love this c.d. And I hope my "review" helps in your decision whether or not to buy it!
Having said that...this recording is tremendous. Kay Swift's music comes to life through the talented and spectacular voices, most notebly of Gavin Creel and Carolee Carmello. I think I listen to their duet (Track 10), at least once a day. The whole thing is just pure broadway fun, the way it used to be! The only bad thing about this c.d. is that you wished they had staged this musical, so that you could go see it live!
Not To Be Missed May 31, 2004
Stephen Peithman (Davis, CA USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Kay Swift, best-known for her close association with George Gershwin, was one of the few female composers to write for Broadway. Fine and Dandy was her first book musical, featuring lyrics by husband Paul James, and became one of the biggest hits of Broadway's 1930-31 season. However, like many musicals of the era, most of the original performance materials were lost over the years. In the mid-`80s, Swift began to reconstruct the score, assisted by orchestrator Russell Warner, who continued the work following her death in 1993. The new recording is a revelation, for the songs are, as the title says, fine and dandy--clever and romantic by turns, and always tuneful. Those who love Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" and "Of Thee I Sing" will find a similar feel here, helped by strong performances from Carolee Carmello, Gavin Creel, Mario Cantone, Mark Linn-Baker and Jennifer Laura Thompson, bolstered by a full orchestra. The CD also includes several other songs by Swift, including the classic "Can't We Be Friends?"
fabulous discovery! May 29, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is an amazing score: witty, clever, fantastically inventive music -- fans of Gershwin et al will be delighted to discover this delightful show. What a great contribution to the American songbook. And hats off to PS Classics for this debut nonprofit historical recording, which has impeccable production quality. Can't wait for the next one they release.
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