Jacques Darieux Orchestra- The Music Man and The Mikado

 

IMG_4917This album was $1.00 and I really like both the Music Man and the Mikado. How could this go wrong?

Well, it does. Horribly. I guess I was expecting more horns and more daring arrangements. The songs on this album are bland and uninspiring. The album notes brag a unique interpretation but that is not the case. The first side plays some selections from the Music Man. The vocals on it are awful. Real white-bread stuff. The second side has taken excerpts from the Mikado and rolled them into a few single songs. But again, there is nothing real unique or daring about any of this. And for this reason, this album falls flat.

I do not know much about Jacques Darieux, the band leader. From what I could find on the net, he started music early at age 7, his parents were disappointed with his choice of career, he entered WWII, and spent time in a Russian Prison camp where he organized a twenty piece band in what I can only imagine in a Stalag 17 context. I can only find this and another album that he put out. I did, run across this picture on Sleeveface.com .

http://www.sleeveface.com/?cat=861  

I picked an excerpt from the Mikado side which features “The Sun and I”, which is my favorite song from the Mikado. If you ever get a chance to see the movie “Topsy-Turvy”, about the making of the Mikado, there is a very sad sub-plot regarding the actress Leonora Braham and her struggles with alcoholism and being a single mother in Victorian England. She sings this song at the end and it makes for a touching scene.

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Regardless, I hate this album and will not likely ever play it again. Low rating all the way.