'New York Animals'

[Martin Johnson]

Here's an Off-Broadway review in Variety of the new Bacharach-Sater musical 'New York Animals':

http://variety.com/2015/legit/reviews/n ... 201650907/

[Blair N. Cummings]

It sounds like the book for this is as sloppy and as much of a bummer as that for Some Lovers.
The description of the music is tantalizing but I know we`ll never hear it.

I suppose that some posthumous archivist a la Michael Feinstein will arrange for a recording of these songs but I (and 99% of those on this forum) will be long dead by then.

[Toms1234]

One of the songs...Something That Was Beautiful
5:15 minute mark song begins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rl3b8RwPmk

Tom

[Blair N. Cummings]

This is really lovely and one of the better I`ve heard from Burt in years (even `though I`m aware it`s not brand new). I just wish someone else would sing it. I`ve never liked Biondi. He`s mannered and hammy and every time I see him I think that someone`s lawyer has picked up a microphone.

[blueonblue]

Great song !
But I'm not keen on Biondi's voice, he sounds like an ersatz Barry White.
Would to love to hear the other songs from this new score !

"blue"

[Martin Johnson]

I suspect Mario Biondi probably reminds Bacharach of Isaac Hayes. Here's Biondi's studio cut of 'Something That Was Beautiful':

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9jI3cK9mfxg

[blueonblue]

Martin,
Thanks for posting, that is a wonderful song !
I think his voice is beginning to grow on me.

"blue"

[Blair N. Cummings]

I still can`t stand the guy`s voice but at least the melody is easier to follow here than on the abysmal live version. I only wish Burt had arranged and played on this.

[Martin Johnson]

Discovering that one of the songs from New York Animals was recorded as long ago as 2010 makes me wonder how 'new' the rest of the score is. When Promises, Promises opened at the end of 1968 I'm sure we all assumed that all the songs had been written over the previous 12 months and I'm pretty certain we would have been correct in our assumption. Imagine how amazed we would have been if we'd discovered that for instance ' Knowing When to Leave' had been recorded by someone as early as 1963.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Well, exactly.
I made a similar point about Some Lovers which also seemed to have been cobbled together from earlier material.
However, Joe (NYMusicalguy) assured me that that wasn`t the case and that it simply took a lot of time to get the thing produced. Maybe he has some insight into this score.

[nymusicalsguy]

Hi all, there are about seven songs in NEW YORK ANIMALS. They're not named in the program, though some titles were easy to discern and others were mentioned in the reviews. (The critics presumably received supplemental information.) To the best of my knowledge, the songs are:

"Don't F--k with Me"
"Window Shoppin' and Dreamin' Dreams" (vintage Bacharach uptempo melody - recycled from SOME LOVERS)
"Something That Was Beautiful"
"New York, I Love You"/"New York, Do Not Waste My Time"
"This is How the Heart Knows"
"It All Falls Through"
"When It Does End"

There was a bit of a fragment heard, too, which I referred to in my notes as "The Island," and there is a LOT of incidental music (much of which I believe wasn't composed by Burt, per se, but arranged and based on his melodies and played by the fantastic musical director Debra Barsha.)

There was a demo being played in the theatre lobby, so there's hope for these songs to see some kind of release.

The songs are used in the play as commentary or counterpoint to the action, not as traditional musical theatre songs, so it doesn't surprise me at all that Sater would choose to include some of the pop songs he and Bacharach had written (such as "Something That Was Beautiful") and even a song from SOME LOVERS ("Window Shoppin' and Dreamin' Dreams"). Other songs, such as the opening number "Don't F--k with Me," were likely written expressly for this production. The melodies here are quite striking, and the critics' reception was warmest towards Burt's contributions. I'm not sure whether NEW YORK ANIMALS will have a future life, but the music certainly deserves a further hearing.