PROMISES, PROMISES OCR Special Edition Due in August

Kritzerland has announced a special 2 CD release of PROMISES, PROMISES, the Original Cast Album . Music by Burt Bacharach Lyrics by Hal David

On December 1, 1968, Promises, Promises, the musical version of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond's The Apartment, opened at the Shubert and took Broadway by storm. The show was such a breath of fresh air, with its hilarious book by Neil Simon, and pop-sounding and brilliant score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. When that overture began, you knew the sound of Broadway had just changed forever - it was electric in the best way. The show garnered rave reviews and ran 1,281 performances. The show was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and took home the prize for Jerry Orbach (Best Actor) and Marian Mercer (Best Supporting Actress).

One of the reasons the sound of the show seemed so innovative was that Bacharach brought in Broadway's first recording-type mixing board. Also his use of four pit singers doing back-up vocals was unique. The show's orchestrations were by the young up-and-coming Jonathan Tunick, who honored the Bacharach sound while adding a few wonderful touches of his own. The cast recording won a Grammy, and the show produced several hit songs, including two for Dionne Warwick - "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," and "Promises, Promises" (she also recorded "Knowing When To Leave," "Wanting Things" and "Whoever You Are"). Bacharach himself covered five of the songs on his A&M album Make It Easy On Yourself.

This is the third CD release for the original cast recording of Promises, Promises. The first was issued on Ryko, and then that release was reissued by Varese Sarabande. Why a third release? Simple: neither of those releases were the actual cast album as released on LP - the original mix. Ryko remixed the album from the original eight-track edited session masters and that newly mixed album was also used for the Varese release. So, this is actually the first appearance of the Grammy award-winning original album mix - newly remastered, of course. The two-track album masters were in excellent shape.

But the raison d'etre of this release was to present a second CD with a newly mixed version (from those original and great-sounding eight-track edited session masters) that, with today's technology, could finally fix most of the issues that plagued the original cast album. As most know, cast albums were always recorded in one day (it's still the same today, but there are a few shows that go to two and even three days), and the pressure was always on to get everything finished without going into overtime, and then to mix it quickly (frequently in a day or two) and have it in stores instantly. Compromises sometimes had to be made. And so, there have always been pitch issues with some of the vocals - they simply got it as good as they could get it and out it came. We went in, and, without compromising anything but the actual pitchiness, corrected the faulty pitches throughout. We were also able to take our time with the mix and you'll hear things in the orchestration you've never heard, and even an occasional little vocal thing that was left off the original album (listen to "You'll Think of Someone"). So, it's a whole new listening experience, and one we're especially happy to have been able to do. We've also put the tracks in their correct show order for the first time.

It is the greatest of pleasures to be able to present this special edition two CD set of Promises, Promises - the original Grammy award-winning album, and our fresh and newly remixed version in show order, with the vocals sounding like they never have before. With the brand new revival of the show on Broadway, you won't want to miss this limited edition set of the original cast recording sounding like it never has before, and featuring the great performances of Jerry Orbach, Jill O'Hara, Marian Mercer, and the rest of the wonderful cast.

This release is limited to 1000 copies only. For this special 2 CD set we've kept the price at our usual single disc cost of $19.98 plus shipping.

CD will ship by the first week of August - however, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we've been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.

Photo Credit: BWW-Staff