What an interesting listen. Carmen Jones was quite the success of it's year, running over 500 performances. Maybe it was an escape from the war. Maybe it was the opera tunes pretending to be musical theater. Maybe it was the all Black cast. Who know? But listen to 'Dis Flower' and tell me that isn't musical theater? It's incredible to me how these opera songs make the transition. Yes, there are the familiar tunes you know from pop culture. For me, it's the rarer known ones that are the most interesting listen. Of course, there are are the painfully of date 'dem's and 'der's, but it's not that bad. Overall, Hammerstein succeeds in making plot moving songs out of arias (which are written to pontificate on one idea the whole song). Rarely do they actually further the plot. Here we have songs that give us information and feelings, and also further the plot. The singing is ok, not the best. There are a couple stand alone solos, but there is a final soprano note in a group number that is particularly bad...otherwise it's all passible. Sometimes the singing is muddy and I can't hear the orchestra, but that might be the dated recording techniques. Either way, I'd like to listen to this again with a cleaner/newer recording. Ps. The bonus track is interesting... Kitty singing all the 'dem's and 'der's makes me feel kinda funny...
Grade: B+
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