By Steven Suskin
26 Jul 2010

PROMISES, PROMISES [Kritzerland KR 20015-9]
The original Broadway cast album of Promises has developed a bum reputation over the years. The LP sounded super — thanks in part to recording engineer/producer Phil Ramone — and won a Grammy Award as a result. When this album made a belated appearance on CD in 1999 (from Ryko and, later, Varese), though, it was with a new mix that was inferior to the original. And that's the Promises CD we're accustomed to. Bruce Kimmel, of Kritzerland, has seen fit to take Promises and restore it to the glory of the original cast LP.

And this is where it gets a little complicated. Cast albums, in those days, were recorded and released in a breathless rush, which means there wasn't necessarily time to polish things to optimal condition. What's more, the original Promises album came not from Columbia or RCA — old hands at original cast album production — but United Artists, a pop label. The Promises album — even in the original LP version — has, for example, some glaringly noticeable pitch issues. Kimmel determined that by applying modern-day technology to the original session masters, and then remixing the whole thing, he could give us a Promises that sounded as good as the show sounded at the Shubert back in 1968.

And that's what he has done. The Kritzerland label was established around the concept of limited edition licenses of vintage cast albums (and soundtracks, too); Kimmel came up with a financial plan which makes sense along these somewhat narrow strictures. Kritzerland's Promises, Promises was released in early July in an 1,000-disc edition, containing two CDs; a straight CD remastering of Ramone's Grammy Award-winning original LP as well as a technologically enhanced and "fixed" new version. I didn't quite understand, before listening, why Kimmel bothered to include the non-enhanced disc; wouldn't it sound the same, only lesser? Seeing as how Kritzerland was issuing the two CDs at their regular one-CD price, I figured that it was academic. Having listened to the Ramone disc, I see Kimmel's point; it certainly shows how Promises was ill-served by the CD previously available.

Still, it is the second, "fixed" CD that is the prize here. Yes, it sounds better than the original LP, the old CD, and even what I suppose we should term the new Ramone CD; this is the best of the Promises. But the original Broadway cast recording, in any guise, is the best Promises; better than the new cast recording, better than the 1969 London cast recording (starring Anthony Roberts and Betty Buckley). The original Promises, Promises, starring Jerry Orbach and Jill O'Hara, has oomph, all right. And plenty of it.

Kritzerland's 1,000 pieces sold out in record time — or should we say "CD time"? — with orders continuing to pour in. So Kimmel went back to the licensors for another 1,000. This second shift does not include the Ramone version; just one CD, the "fixed" remastering (at the same standard Kritzerland price for the single disc). Which is the one you're going to want to listen to, anyway. And the one which puts the songs in the correct show order, as well as including a hidden bonus of Ms. O'Hara singing the title song. (This sounds like it comes from the original recording session, with the orchestra playing Tunick's chart in a different key.) So don't despair if you missed the two-CD version; the new single-CD release is the Promises you want.

Let us put in a word for Kritzerland as well. These limited edition releases are moderately profitable — as long as they sell out. While titles like Anya and Illya Darling have flown speedily into our hands, a few are still on the shelf. Not a good situation, as in order to get the rights to these limited runs Kimmel has to pay full royalties and licensing fees in advance. Kritzerland has still got copies of the 1968 revival of Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's House of Flowers, Mitch Leigh's Cry for Us All, Carol Channing's Show Girl, and the TV soundtrack of Stephen Sondheim's "Evening Primrose." I can personally vouch for Cry for Us All, an immensely troubled but gloriously dramatic musical with Robert Weede and (especially) Joan Diener singing up a storm; and "Evening Primrose," which contains tantalizing seeds of the Sondheim of the 1970s.

Under Kritzerland's financial plan, the sales of yesterday's releases fund tomorrow's. There are still quite a few Broadway LPs that we want — or perhaps need — to hear on CD. Mr. Kimmel originated the concept of reissuing out-of-print cast albums on CD long ago with Chicago, Golden Boy, A Funny Thing and others on his Bay Cities label. He remains one of the few people in the recording industry willing to go out on a financial limb to feed our hunger for out-of-print cast albums with limited audiences, so don't his efforts deserve the support of fans of such things?

(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released updated and expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)