The album, music-directed by David Loud and produced by PS Classics co-founder Tommy Krasker, was recorded at Avatar Studios in New York City May 11-12.
Broadway stars Mazzie and Danieley created their duets evening for the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center in October 2002, and, according to PS Classics, "have since refined it and performed it to great acclaim in venues ranging from Joe's Pub in New York City to The Cinegrill in Los Angeles."
For this new recording, orchestrators Bill Brohn, Larry Hochman, Christopher Jahnke, and Joseph Thalken augmented the original piano-bass accompaniment with new, fuller arrangements.
"We didn't just want to record the live show note for note," Krasker told Playbill.com. "There was a lot they do onstage that depends upon audience response, and that wasn't going to work nearly as well on disc. We wanted to shape the show for the studio, and we were aided by the fact that Marin and Jason had been refining the evening for years, so there was a lot of material to choose from. We focused on what would play best on CD, enlarged the orchestral textures where appropriate, and created something that I feel complements the live show beautifully, without slavishly duplicating it."
The track listing is as follows: 1. "Honeysuckle Rose" (Thomas "Fats" Waller & Andy Razaf)
2. Harold Arlen Medley (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer & Ted Koehler)
"Come Rain or Come Shine"
"When the Sun Comes Out"
"Stormy Weather"
"That Old Black Magic"
3. "I Want You to Be" (Barbara Schottenfeld)
4. "I Got Lost in His Arms"/"Who Are You Now?" (Irving Berlin/Jule Styne & Bob Merrill)
5. Irving Berlin Medley (Irving Berlin)
"Simple Melody"
"An Old Fashioned Wedding"
"You’re Just in Love"
6. "A Sorta Love Song" (Paul Loesel & Scott Burkell)
7. "I Won't Send Roses" (Jerry Herman)
8. "The Aba Daba Honeymoon" (Arthur Fields & Walter Donovan)
9. "Nellie the Nudist Queen" (Stuart Ross & Joe Sargent)
10. "The Natural Order of Things" (Paul Loesel & Scott Burkell)
Stephen Sondheim Medley (Stephen Sondheim)
11. "Happiness"
12. "Good Thing Going"
13. "Too Many Mornings"
14. "Not a Day Goes By"
15. "Move On"
16. "Opposite You" (Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens)
The songwriters Paul Loesel (composer) and Scott Burkell (lyricist) are old friends of Mazzie, and (particularly actor-writer Burkell) performed with her in formative years at the Augusta Barn Theatre in Western Michigan. Both she and Danieley have appeared in readings of Loesel and Burkell's modern-relationships musical, Six of One.
Danieley recently starred in the Encores! presentation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He made his Broadway debut as Candide in the Hal Prince Candide produced by Livent. For it, he received a Theatre World Award, a Drama League Award and a Drama desk nomination. Other Broadway credits include The Full Monty (also in London's West End). He has also starred in concerts of Strike Up the Band and Allegro for City Center Encores! His Off-Broadway credits include The Trojan Women: A Love Story, Dream True (Ricky Ian Gordon) and Floyd Collins (Adam Guettel).
He and Mazzie recently performed together in the musicals 110 in the Shade (Pasadena) and Brigadoon (Reprise! in Los Angeles). They have also sung together with major symphony orchestras around the U.S.
Mazzie most recently starred on Broadway as "Aldonza/Dulcinea" in Man of La Mancha. She received Tony and Drama Desk nominations and an Outer Critics Circle award for her performance in the hit revival of Kiss Me, Kate, and later received an Olivier Award nomination when she made her West End debut in the show. Other Broadway credits include Ragtime (Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics nominations for playing Mother), Passion (Tony nomination, for playing Clara), the original productions of Into the Woods and Big River. She starred in the Encores! concert of Cole Porter's Out of This World (preserved on a concert cast album). She has appeared Off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues, The Trojan Women: A Love Story and And the World Goes 'Round (also national tour). On television, she has a recurring role on the CBS sitcom "Still Standing," playing the all-too-perfect wife (of Kevin Nealon), Kathy Halverson.
David Loud was the music director for Ragtime on Broadway, as well as A Class Act, Steel Pier, The Look of Love, and the revivals of She Loves Me, Company and The Boys From Syracuse. Off-Broadway, he created the vocal and dance arrangements for And the World Goes 'Round (Outer Critic’s Circle and Drama Desk awards, Best Musical Revue). Regional work includes the world premieres of Kander and Ebb's The Visit and Harold and Maude, the musical. He originated the role of Manny in Terrence McNally's Master Class, and he made his Broadway debut in Harold Prince's original 1981 production of Merrily We Roll Along. His song cycle, Translations, based on the love sonnets of Pablo Neruda, premiered at the Thalia in New York City in 2003. He is a graduate of Yale University.
Twice Grammy-nominated (for its Broadway cast recordings of Assassins and Nine: The Musical), PS Classics, co-founded by Tommy Krasker & Philip Chaffin, is known for its commitment to theatre music and the American pop song. Its diverse catalog of show albums, solo CDs and songbook recordings includes cast albums of The Frogs, Fiddler on the Roof, A Year With Frog and Toad, My Life With Albertine, Zanna, Don't! and First Lady Suite; solo albums by Jessica Molaskey, Christine Andreas, and Rebecca Luker; and composer-related discs boasting Billy Strayhorn, Jerome Moross, Maury Yeston and Jason Robert Brown.
PS Classics is distributed exclusively by Image Entertainment.
For more information, visit www.psclassics.com.
