By Steven Suskin
07 Mar 2004

Now we have yet another Wonderful Town, and it quickly jumps near the head of the class. Donna Murphy — she of Fosca and the 1996 King and I — is as much a singer as Ms. Russell was not. But Donna clearly takes her cue from Roz; this Ruth Sherwood is a well-rounded, and funny, creation. Some may like Murphy as much, or more, than Ms. Russell. Others can argue the relative merits of the three Bob Bakers: the musically stodgy George Gaynes, the charming-but-approximate Sydney Chaplin, and the present-day Gregg Edelman. Edelman, who has developed a nice sense of humor over the last decade or so, gets my nod uncontested, as does Edith (Edie) Adams, the Eileen of 1953.

But the reason to do Wonderful Town is the score. This production began life as the 2000 season-ender at City Center Encores!, where music is king. Director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall, music director Rob Fisher, and the producers of the transfer have wisely and happily kept their ears clean, as it were. This might seem an obvious decision, but I can think of only one recent musical revival that sounded as fresh as the show did when the composer was standing at the back of the theatre taking notes.

A good thing, too, since Don Walker provided Wonderful Town with a vibrantly colorful and refreshingly breezy set of orchestrations that are distinctive among Broadway musicals of the era. Which calls for some explanation. For a variety of reasons that we needn't go into here, Walker — who had been orchestrating on Broadway since 1934 — responded to changing times by forming his own little orchestration factory in the early fifties. With Seymour "Red" Ginzler as his main assistant, Walker appears to have accepted everything that came along. (Buttrio Square, anyone?)

Walker's venture was an immediate success, but at a price. In February 1953, Walker orchestrated three musicals that opened on Broadway within fourteen days. All three shows tried out, in different cities at the same time, and each show underwent drastic revisions. To get Wonderful Town up and ready, Walker needed to call on nine different orchestrators. Because it was the last of the three shows, Walker had time to write only a handful of charts, with Ginzler scoring more than a third of the show. (Conversely, Walker did about a third of the first show of that month, Jule Styne's Hazel Flagg.)

Wonderful Town wound up with an exceptional set of orchestrations despite this, or perhaps because of this; the right numbers were carefully assigned to the right people. Walker's main contributions were "A Little Bit in Love," "My Darlin' Eileen" and the lengthy first-act ballet "Conquering the City" (which is given a dazzling playing on this new CD). Ginzler's work included "One Hundred Easy Ways," "Conga!," "It's Love" and the "Ballet at the Village Vortex." (On a personal note, I would love to find the deleted lyric to this, "Let It Come Down.")

Walker called on Joe Glover — who made significant contributions to Walker's Call Me Madam — for "Ohio" and "The Wrong Note Rag." Ginzler, meanwhile, enlisted two TV-arranger friends, Sid Ramin ("Swing") and Irv Kostal ("Pass the Football"). With Walker tending to his other shows when Wonderful Town headed towards New Haven, Ginzler and Ramin did most of the many changes and fixes demanded by the battling authors, Abbott, Robbins, et al.

Mind you, none of this should be taken as a question of Walker's abilities. Don orchestrated much of Carousel and almost all of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Most Happy Fella and She Loves Me — four exceptionally orchestrated shows that offer a staggering array of styles. By 1960, Walker had decided to concentrate on one show at a time, with impressive results.

The DRG recording of the current revival, happily ensconced at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, brings full value to Bernstein's score and to the arrangements, making this a very wonderful Wonderful Town indeed.

— Steven Suskin, author of the "Broadway Yearbook" series, "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached by e-mail at Ssuskin@aol.com.