Using sound judgment, members of the Recording Academy will choose Kiss Me, Kate, The Music Man, The Wild Party, Aida or Swing! for the 2001 Best Show Album Grammy Award Feb. 21. The 43rd Grammy Award nominations were announced Jan. 3. The competing recordings in the Musical Show category in 2001 represent three shows still humming along on Broadway — Aida, Kiss Me, Kate, The Music Man — and two that went dark, Swing! and Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party. Swing!, however, is currently on a national tour.

The annual Grammys, celebrating the best of the recording industry as chosen by the recording industry, will be held Feb. 21 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

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Producer Hugh Fordin gets two nominations as producer of both Kiss Me, Kate (preserved on the DRG label, with Paul Gemignani and Don Sebesky as co-producers) and The Music Man (on the Q Records label).

Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida is packing them in at the Palace Theatre. The dance revue, Swing!, closed Jan. 14 at the St. James Theatre. LaChiusa's The Wild Party, drawn from a Jazz Age poem about sex, booze and violence among vaudevillians, had a brief Broadway run in spring 2000. That disc was produced by rock producer Phil Ramone.

Swing! borrows existing musical material and includes several new tunes. Kiss Me, Kate and Music Man are both revivals and had original cast recordings prior to these new revival recordings.

The Wild Party is the first original Broadway cast album on the Decca Broadway label, and this is that label's first Grammy nom.

— By Kenneth Jones