Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters in Mack & Mabel

Playlist for Sunday, April 28, 2013: Sublimely Strange

The opening number of this week's show is a real favorite: The Rhythm of Life, from Sweet Charity. I remember the movie version with Sammy Davis, Jr...but the Broadway "take" is just as cool. The character's name is Daddy Johann Sebastian Brubeck, an out-there, bead-wearing, nehru-jacketed cat. Then there's Bernadette Peter's "Wherever You Ain't" from Mack & Mabel, one of those strange musicals whose leading lady is addicted to cocaine, leaves the one guy who brought her out from behind that diner counter to become a star, and then she dies. Perfect for Broadway, right?   And then there's a gorgeous ballad from Funny Girl, "Who Are You Now?"  Enjoy...

The Rhythm of Life (Arnold Soboloff, Sweet Charity)
Razzle Dazzle (Jerry Orbach, Chicago)
You Are Woman (Sydney Chaplin, Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl)
Single Man Drought (Ensemble, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change)
The Saga of Jenny (Maria Friedman, Lady in the Dark)
This Plum is Too Ripe (Ensemble, The Fantasticks)
Anyone Can Whistle (Lee Remick, Anyone Can Whistle)
Who Are You Now? (Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl)
I Hate Men (Patricia Morrison, Kiss Me Kate)
Wherever He Ain't (Bernadette Peters, Mack & Mabel)
It Takes A Woman (David Burns, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jerry Dodge, Hello  
                                   Dolly!)
Impossible (Michael Hordern, Michael Crawford, A Funny Thing Happened
                                   on the Way to the Forum)

Wrong date for last playlist...April 21! Wow. More caffeine, please.

JAZZ 90.1 PLEDGE DRIVE!

The spring pledge drive on Member-Supported Jazz 90.1 is in its final days...it ends this Friday, April 19th...and we haven't met our goal yet!  It truly is a "member supported" station, not one of those big corporate stations...its existence depends entirely on people like you and me, donating our time AND MONEY!  If you enjoy "2 on the Aisle," and you like having the ability to stream it online (which ain't free, lemme tell ya!), consider making a pledge to Jazz 90.1.  And if you've already donated...thanks so much!

Call 585-966-5299, or you can pledge online at Jazz901.org

Ethel Merman...in Panama Hattie, 1941

Playlist for Sunday, April 24, 2013: From Epic to Adenoidal

This week's show starts on the iconic side...with Barbra's Funny Girl, and moments from Girl Crazy, Camelot, even My Fair Lady.  Huge musicals, which ya gotta love, but forgive me...I'm a fan of the Quirky.  Gotta add a few weird selections in there, right?  So we'll sample Ethel Merman's Panama Hattie (an Irish Hattie Maloney, owner of a nightclub...in Panama!), an Elaine Stritch/Don Ameche duet from Goldilocks, and something called Marriage Tango, from I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.

Oh, and re the adenoids:  Magic Foot, sung by Daniel Fogel, as the contestant William Barfee (accent "aigu" on that last E) from "Spelling Bee" fame.  Not really adenoids, but he has only one working nostril, so you get that nice STUFFED timbre. Love it. 


Slap That Bass (Harry Groener and Cast, Crazy for You)
I Got Rhythm (Mary Martin, Girl Crazy)
Don't Rain on My Parade (Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl)
Lost and Found (Rachel York, City of Angels)
Don't Look Now (John Lithgow, Sweet Smell of Success)
Camelot (Richard Burton, Camelot)
On the Street Where You Live (John Michael King, My Fair Lady)
My Ship (Maria Friedman, Lady in the Dark)
Make It Another Old Fashioned Please (Ethel Merman, Panama Hattie)
No One'll Ever Love You (Elaine Stritch, Don Ameche, Goldilocks)
You Could Drive a Person Crazy (Ensemble, Company)
The Lees of Old Virginia (Robert Holgate, Ensemble, 1776)
Next to Lovin' I Like Fightin' (Ensemble, Shenandoah)
Magic Foot (Dan Fogel, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee)
Marriage Tango (Robert Roznowski, Melissa Weil, I Love You, You're Perfect,
                             Now Change)

Bonus tracks from today's show, 4/14/13

Wow. Since 2 on the Aisle started almost 5 minutes early today, I had a chance to add two bonus tracks:

I Love You (Sid Caesar, Virginia Marten, Little Me)
and
The Queen of Terra Haute (Peggy Cass, Fifty Million Frenchmen)

So now that playlist is indeed complete...thanks for listening!

A photo of Bob Dishy and Liza Minelli, rehearsing for Flora the Red Menace, 1965.

Playlist for Sunday, April 14, 2013...

"Flora the Red Menace" was the debut of not only Liza (with a Z) Minelli, but also the first time John Kander and Fred Ebb worked together (1965).  Liza was just 19, and sounded at that point in her career more like a young Barbara Streisand, who the show was rumored to have been written for.  AND she won a Tony for it.  At 19.  Not too shabby.  So I'm playing a duet that features her with Bob Dishy: "Not Every Day of the Week."  Also in the line up is a selection from "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change," which is a big favorite of mine: "A Stud and a Babe." That whiny spoken intro is the best.


Put On Your Sunday Clothes (Charles Nelson Reilly, Carol Channing, and
                          and cast, Hello Dolly)
If They Could See Me Know (Gwen Verdon, Sweet Charity)
Te Voglio Bene (Kathi Moss, Nine)
Bidin' My Time (Mary Martin, Girl Crazy)
Mister Cellophane (John C. Reilly, Chicago)
By the Sea (Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, Sweeney Todd)
Four Black Dragons (Cast, Pacific Overtures)
Chanson (Jill Marin, The Baker's Wife)
A Light in the Dark (Alice Ripley, J. Robert Spencer, Next to Normal)
Not Every Day of the Week (Liza Minelli, Bob Dishy, Flora the Red Menace)
A Stud and a Babe (Robert Roznowski, Jennifer Simard, I Love You, You're
                           Perfect, Now Change)

Moving Over and Out: Say Bye to Elaine!

Farewell performance last night at the Carlyle, Elaine Stritch at 88 yrs. old finally retired.  What a performer...and what a life!  Says she's going to move back to her hometown in Michigan. Can we really believe this?  Maybe she heard I did that move a couple of years back, and is following my example.

Yeah, sure. 

Playlist: Sunday, April 7, 2013

I've waited almost 6 months to play a couple of these songs...thinking that perhaps they're too eccentric or too long or too SOMETHING for people other than me to love.  Well, the waiting is over, and you all get to hear a few of my obsessions.  From Working, that musical that just reeks of the 70s, the opening number, "All the Live Long Day," with wah-wah pedal, and Shaft-y moments...and from Pacific Overtures, a 7 minute "Someone in a Tree." There's also "Opening Doors," from that doomed Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along...and from the 1890s, "After the Ball."  So I get to play a lot of ME music this Sunday.  But remember, you can request YOU music, and I will put that on the air, too!

All the Live Long Day (Ensemble, Working)
I'll Go Home with Bonnie Jean (Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Brigadoon)
The Rain in Spain (Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady)
There's a Small Hotel (Kay Coulter, Bobby Van, On Your Toes)
After the Ball (Barbara Cook, Showboat)
Anything Goes (Eileen Rodgers, Anything Goes)
The Hostess with the Mostes' on the Ball (Ethel Merman, Call Me Madam)
Opening Doors (Cast, Merrily We Roll Along)
Someone in a Tree (Ensemble, Pacific Overtures)
Happily Ever After (Carol Burnett, Once Upon a Mattress)
Simple Little System (Eddie Lawrence and Cast, Bells are Ringing)
...AND if we have time, I Love You (Sid Caesar, Virginia Martin, Little Me)