“This new Strike Up the Band is a different recording of a different show. And to my mind, a better recording of a better show. A masterpiece.” –Playbill.com
“Extremely rich, loaded with class and brimming over with beautiful music and lyrics. For the first time ever, the entire 1930 score of Strike Up The Band, by George and Ira Gershwin, is presented with a delightful studio cast. Impressively packaged with a history of the original production, original cast member photos and a thorough commentary on the show, its packaged sunshine all around. ” –Edge Magazine
“Hearing these terrific tunes in their perfected Broadway song listing is like opening a buried treasure of pearls and diamonds. And Brent Barrett and Rebecca Luker sound utterly ravishing.” –Next Magazine
Strike Up the Band (1930) 2011 Studio Cast Recording Brent Barrett, Don Chastain & Rebecca Luker
PS Classics marks its one hundredth release with a recording over twenty years in the making: George and Ira Gershwin's 1930 hit Broadway musical, STRIKE UP THE BAND. A result of the late Mrs. Ira Gershwin's efforts to preserve the great unrecorded Gershwin scores, STRIKE UP THE BAND was restored and partially recorded during a period that also yielded acclaimed studio cast albums of the Gershwins' Girl Crazy, Lady, Be Good! and Oh, Kay! An earlier version of the score as heard during the show's pre-Broadway tryout in 1927 was released in 1991, but the final score, extensively revised by the Gershwins and received rapturously by critics and audiences during the 1929-30 Broadway season, was never fully tracked, nor put into post-production until now. Under the supervision of original producer Tommy Krasker, the recording featuring Brent Barrett, Don Chastain, Rebecca Luker, Jason Graae, Beth Fowler, Charles Goff, Juliet Lambert, Jeff Lyons and James Rocco, plus a 16-member chorus, a tap-dancing ensemble, and an orchestra of 28 conducted by John Mauceri was completed during the spring of 2011 with the support of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts and the Music Division of the Library of Congress. Boasting a hit score brimming with soaring melodies and infectious syncopation, and lyrics that both provoke and delight, the 1930 STRIKE UP THE BAND continues PS Classics' forgotten musicals series in high style.
